Lew’s broadside at Myer strategy

RETAIL billionaire Solomon Lew has savaged Myer, saying the department store chain is making up its strategy “on the run” and selling stock that “belongs in the Salvation Army”.

The retail veteran says he is “bitterly disappointed” with the performance of Myer since Premier Investments became its biggest shareholder earlier this year.

Premier, chaired by Mr Lew, took a 10.8 per cent stake in Myer in March, paying $1.15 a share in a transaction worth $101 million.

Shares in Myer have since fallen to 71.5c, handing Premier a $37.5 million paper loss.

“Bitterly disappointed,” Mr Lew said of the result.

“We are not in the lose money business — Lew doesn’t like to lose money.”

Mr Lew said the department store operator had lost too much talent, was being run by business consultants and looked to be “on a permanent stocktake sale”.

He savaged its move to introduce dedicated clearance floors at a number of its stores, saying some of the stock being offered to shoppers was three years old. “That inventory belongs in the Salvation Army,” Mr Lew said.

The attack was delivered as Premier posted a net profit for the year to July 29 of $105.1 million, up 1.2 per cent on the previous year, and announced it would launch its red-hot Smiggle brand in the Netherlands and Belgium next year.

Mr Lew said he had visited many Myer stores across Aus- tralia and was far from impressed by what he saw.

“You would be horrified if you actually saw what was going on out there,” he said.

“The business at this point in time has too much of what the consumer doesn’t want ... the share price has gone from $4.10 to 70c. You tell me, is the strategy working?”

Mr Lew questioned why the retailer had not revealed major writedowns it would have known about at its annual meeting last year and its firsthalf results in March, before Premier bought in.