A Message From The Chairman

Resilience against all odds

Tamer Frères faced the challenges of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, the security in the country, and the 4^th of August explosion.

We remain committed more than ever to continue our mission, sustain and expand our business.

Tamer Frères family and colleagues will always look at the future with measured ambition and hope.

We are confident that we will build and grow and keep on cultivating this wonderful relationship with our suppliers and partners that stood by us and understood the circumstances we are going through.

Lebanon, the country that will outlive all odds, the 100 years of Lebanon reveals how young it is and connected to the 6000 years of its inhabitants, as it will grow it will develop its maturity and ability to get rid of all the ones who have bad intentions towards our country.

My message this year is a message of reassurance, empathy, resilience, respect, and harder work. Our aim is to retain the value that Tamer Frères has been building and to grow it to the future generations, keep on providing to everyone that was involved with the company a carrier ambition as much as other ambitions.

Our suppliers understood and stood by us immediately and treated us with the spirit of a family and we promise you that the local situation will change, we will always believe in free minds. The Lebanese spirit cannot be repressed we are confident that the country will go back to better than it was. Respectful freedom will prevail, as always, in the Lebanese history we have done it so many times and we will do it again.

Lebanon by its nature is a paradox country such as Lebanese adopting premonition instead of reason, which becomes a quality for the success of Lebanese in this world’s turbulences.

In any case, the geographical position of Lebanon remains very important for all civilizations being a bridge between Europe and Asia and vice versa. Hence cultural and business exchange is predominant as history already described it for thousands of years.

Therefore with the respect of human rights, and respect of our laws that need to be reshuffled with the separation of justice from politics adding the neutrality and laicism of Lebanon remain our main task for stability.

We should draw out courage from our despair.

In spite of all the abnormal difficulties, our learning curve has never been as sharp as 2020, for this I congratulate every colleague who offered his best endeavor towards productivity, facing the pandemic Covid-19 with courage and conscience. We all learned the interdependence of health and economy throughout this year.

All our departments worked as effectively as possible which placed us in a privileged situation where we could help the society, the different industries and the medical system by supplying all their needs without shortage. Our healthcare department contributed to allowing access to the best healthcare supply keeping the system as efficient as possible at the lowest possible cost. Our luxury division was able to operate success future through digital platforms. Our chemical division was constantly supplying the market with the needed raw materials and chemical products so that the Lebanese industries would not be short of supplies to produce foods, juices, cosmetics, detergents, and especially disinfectants much needed during this pandemic. Our ATM, IT and Banking solution division, was working 24/7 to repair ATM machines and help with banking solutions to facilitate customer transactions.

We owe also our share of gratitude to our faithful partners who understood our difficult life, collaborated with us to support our sustainability and offered, compassionately, donations to our clients namely in the medical field.

Resilience, resilience, resilience, our only way of surviving the tempest, stronger than ever before, we will need to work hand in hand to bounce back with strength from daily setbacks and professional crisis. We should remain mindful and empathic.

2021 seems to start with more lockdowns around the world, a new pause and more time alone, which can help us improve our peace and productivity. We learned how to work on self-improvement and adapt ourselves to the new rules of economic changes, also on team motivation, and the improvement of our emotional wellness.

We strongly recommend to never lose faith in Lebanon, we will be driving the recovery of our company along with the recovery of the different economic sectors in the Lebanese market with a well-defined, structured and well-planned strategy.

While the whole world is tired, we will thrive to re-examine our personal resilience, our ability and strength to overcome obstacles and recover. We will use our current arousal and state of alert, to define the next steps. We will continue to work on stamina, perseverance, and endurance in order to defy all burdens.

We will turn the current momentum into an advantage by taking the right steps now that will define our long-term sustainability.

The most crucial factor we will defy is the mental wellbeing of our teams, the health concerns of our communities, reducing anxiety, and promoting a sense of stability. We have hard battles to win this year, it is clear to us, that we need to enter a “fight mode”, staying ahead of the curve and preparing for our next stages. Sustaining energy in our minds in order for it to reflect on our teams, we will go through this together with positive full-throttled energy, considering the setbacks temporary and changeable.

All those ideas put together would contribute to building a strong Lebanon highly respected offering everything needed to secure a joyful and peaceful life.

On behalf of Tamer Frères’ Board of Directors, we wish you with your Family a Healthy and Peaceful New Year 2021.

Jean F. Tamer

Chairman and CEO