Hole-In-The-Wall & Other Acquisitions

The 1970’s were a very difficult time for the hardware industry and the economy in general. There was much talk and speculation about communism, so many businessmen and home owners sold out and migrated. Similarly, businesses that remained opened, including H & L experienced lagging sales due to draconian import restrictions by the State Trading Corporation, and IMF imposed exchange restrictions on foreign currency.

Hole-In-The-Wall owned and operated by the Chin-See brothers, Neville and Pat also experienced this downturn in sales. The brothers decided to sell out and Hardware and Lumber seized the opportunity to acquire the stock and other assets of Hole-In-The-Wall. At the time Hole-In-The-Wall as their slogan, "From a pin to an anchor", suggests carried a vast array of products.

In 1977 Hardware & Lumber Ltd., with Peter Samuels as Managing Director, acquired the stock and some of the other assets of Hole-In-The-Wall, managed at the time by Mr. Bob Forbes. The merging of the operations was spearheaded by Mr. Owen Moss-Solomon, Merchandising Manager at H & L, who was later appointed as Managing Director.

The first Hole-In-The-Wall branch at 56 Hagley Park Road, was closed and their entire operations was moved to Hardware & Lumber on Spanish Town Road. The H & L “hardware supermarket” at 697 Spanish Town Road was re-branded as a Hole-In-The-Wall store. 

Other stores to be acquired by Hardware & Lumber during this period include R. Ernstein & Company, located on Harbour Street in Down Town Kingston and Leonard de Cordova (LdC), a big name in the hardware business at the time, located two doors from H & L at 693 Spanish Town Road. The LdC owned Decorators' Centres located at Manor Park, Tropical Plaza and Church Street, Montego Bay were also re-branded as Hole-In-The-Wall stores as a result of H & L's acquisition of the entire LdC stock. 

The Next Step

Under the leadership of Mr. Moss-Solomon Hardware and Lumber Limited continued its growth by diversifying and expanding the scope of its activities. This diversification and expansion led to the separation of its retailing activities of agricultural and gardening supplies. As a result in late 1980, the company HALAGRO was formed. HALAGRO commenced operations in early 1981, opening a retail store at 697 Spanish Town Road, and was a strategic move to provide direct competition for the GraceKennedy owned AGRO GRACE Limited, which was at the time the island’s foremost supplier of agricultural, farm and garden inputs. The name HALAGRO was later changed to H & L Agri and Marine Co. Limited. Hardware and Lumber later forged strategic alliances with the US based TruServ Corporation, the world’s largest hardware cooperative with over 10,000 members worldwide, and later underwent yet another re-branding exercise, changing the name of its retail stores from Hole-In-The-Wall to H & L True Value.