Yun’s Corp. acquires Town House

Yun’s Corp., which owns the San Jose Mart, 99 Cents, and the New Payless Market, has added a new company to its holdings, after it bought the Town House Department Store in Chalan Kanoa, Saipan.

Town House Inc., which built and operates the Town House Shopping Center, reached an agreement to sell the department store’s inventory and lease the retail premises and other assets to Yun’s Corp. on Dec. 23, 2004.

Ho Jin Yoon, president of Yun’s Corp., and Noli C. Cadag, executive vice president of Jones & Guerrero Company Inc., the parent company of Town House Inc., announced the conclusion of the transaction yesterday.

Yoon said he was very pleased and elated to step into Ken Jones’ shoes. Having taken over the Payless Market in Saipan in 2002, he said he is now taking on the Town House to enhance his opportunity to serve the people of Chalan Kanoa and surrounding villages.

Yoon said he would be keeping the Town House name under license and continue the promotions that Town House is well known for, like the “Dollar Days” sales. He assures people that they can continue to expect “the same quality of merchandise and service that they have come to expect from Town House for many years.”

Ken Jones, who is currently off-island, was represented by Cadag in formalizing the sale.

It was not immediately known if Yun’s Corp. will retain the current employees of Town House.

Cadag said that Jones only agreed to the transaction after he saw how Yoon carried on the Payless Market, feeling assured Yoon would operate the Town House business with the same commitment to the people of Saipan that he himself required of his managers.

Cadag said that Yoon’s successful operation of the Payless Market when he acquired it in 2002 is “a benchmark of the kind of quality product and service that we would expect at Town House.”

When asked why Jones is divesting himself of the Town House Department Store, Cadag explained that, when Jones sold his affiliated Payless Markets and closed the Town House on Guam a couple of years ago, it marked the beginning of his desire to get out of the retail business and move upstream into wholesale operations.

“He had only now found someone to take on both the Payless Market and Town House retail operations on Saipan,” Cadag said.

He said that Jones also finds it difficult to promote his wholesale operations while he kept up his retail store.

Cadag also pointed out that Town House Inc. would continue to be the landlord of and operate the Town House Shopping Center in Chalan Kanoa.

Cadag also said that Jones “want to take life a little easier after being one of the leading pioneers of the post-war rebuilding of Guam and Saipan, and enjoy the things that he loves to do.”

“He just wants to watch his horses run and win,” Cadag said of Jones.

Jones, however, will continue with his other business operations, including the Town House Shopping Center, Micronesian Brokers, Island Business Systems & Supplies, and the Aquarius Beach Tower, Cadag added.