David Jones sold for A$2.1 billion in 2014, then under A$100 million. Now half its 38 stores are closing

David Jones, Australia's oldest department store, will close 19 of its 38 stores by the end of the year. Its receivers, FTI Consulting, told staff on Wednesday, Australian time, just six days after the 188-year-old chain collapsed. The retailer employs more than 6,000 people. The receivers have not said how many will lose their jobs, but a union says thousands of workers are now in limbo heading into Christmas.

The fall has been steep. South Africa's Woolworths Holdings bought David Jones in a A$2.1 billion takeover in 2014. It sold the chain to private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners in 2023 for just under A$100 million, AAP reported. Since then it has kept losing money. All figures in this story are Australian dollars.

Half the network goes dark#

FTI called the move an "urgent restructure" and said the 19 stores will keep trading for now, with no final closing date. "We anticipate they will cease trading by the end of the year," the receivers said, according to The Guardian. Most are smaller suburban stores. The big city flagships are spared, except for Hay Street Mall in central Perth.

Source: ABC News. The Newmarket closure ends David Jones's presence in New Zealand.

Network 10's news account posted the receivers' confirmation, noting that no official closing date had been set.

The chain lost A$170 million in two years#

David Jones lost A$95.5 million in the 2024-25 financial year, after a A$74 million loss the year before, according to AAP. Together that is about A$170 million gone in two years, about 1.7 times what Anchorage paid for the whole business.

Chief executive Erica Berchtold told suppliers the business could not keep operating as it was. "Put simply, our store portfolio is no longer the right shape for the business," she wrote, in correspondence seen by The Guardian.

Lenders in control, suppliers waiting to be paid#

David Jones went into voluntary administration on November 5, with McGrathNicol appointed as administrator. The same day, its main secured lender, Hilco, appointed FTI as receivers, Business News Australia reported. FTI runs the stores day to day. McGrathNicol is looking for a buyer or new money.

Hilco will place its own staff in the closing stores from Thursday to speed up sales and discounting, Berchtold told suppliers. Some small suppliers are owed money for stock sent as far back as April, The Guardian reported. Anchorage, the current owner, is expected to bid to buy back a slimmed-down chain.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported hours before the announcement that suppliers had stopped getting new orders for as many as 19 struggling stores.

Workers and the union push back#

Staff at the 19 stores are in a seven-day consultation. The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association meets management and the administrators on Thursday. It wants affected workers moved to other stores or paid their full redundancy entitlements, which are at risk while the company struggles to pay its debts.

"No one should forget that their plight is entirely the fault of bad management decisions and initiatives going back years, if not decades," said Bernie Smith of the union, AAP reported.

Charles Lloyd Jones, the last member of the founding family to work in the business, told AAP the chain lost its service edge. "If you don't have a unique offer, then it's a race to the bottom with price," he said. When prices race down, he said, staff get cut and service suffers.

Key dates for the sale and closures#

Sources: AAP, Business News Australia. Dates are in Australia. McGrathNicol plans to ask the NSW Supreme Court for more time, which could push later steps back.

Landlords say they can cope. Westfield owner Scentre Group, which hosts David Jones stores in 17 of its centers, said its malls are "practically full" and it could bring in other brands, The Guardian reported.

Online, the collapse was seen coming#

On Reddit's r/australian, a post titled "David Jones Insolvency" went up about two months ago. It claimed the company was in talks with landlords to exit leases and that luxury brands were pulling out. It also said a "big announcement" would come in early November. Those claims were unverified at the time. The administration and closures have since landed on that timeline.

Some posts on X blamed the government. Others blamed online shopping and high rents. A Melbourne shopper at the Malvern Central store, which is closing, told The Guardian that David Jones had simply become too expensive and that people now shop online.

This is the latest in a wave of big job cuts before the holidays. Read our roundup of cuts at Boeing, PepsiCo, Canva and Qualcomm. Australia is also where Qantas is sending 850 office jobs to India. And in Canada, laid-off auto workers are still waiting, as our story on Stellantis selling its Brampton plant explains.