Boss quits after staff underpaid by $32m

THE head of the retail group that owns Rebel and Supercheap Auto has brought forward his retirement after the company confessed to underpaying staff by $32 million.

Super Retail Group chief Peter Birtles will step down next week after the retail conglomerate warned there had been a second instance of staff being underpaid.

Mr Birtles said a compre- hensive review of employment arrangements across the group — which owns brands also including Supercheap Auto, Macpac and Boating, Camping and Fishing — had revealed retail managers had been underpaid overtime and some allowances for six years.

The underpayments total $32 million and the group will pay out another $11 million as compensation, taking the total bill to $43 million. Retail managers represented about 10 per cent of Super Retail’s workforce for that period.

“We are very disappointed that we have let these team members down and not met our standards and we apologise to each person affected unreservedly,” Mr Birtles said.

“We are fully committed to remediating this situation. We have amended our contracts for managers to ensure their salaries appropriately remunerate them for overtime and allowances.”

Mr Birtles said he had offered his resignation to the board, which had accepted it. He will step down as chief executive on February 20.

Super Retail had previously announced Mr Birtles would be replaced by its outdoor retailing managing director Anthony Heraghty.

The changeover will now happen a month earlier than first planned.

Super Retail said the pay review had been completed and it was confident no further issues would arise.

It was delivered as Super Retail said unaudited numbers showed sales rose to $1.4 billion for the six months to December, up 6 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

Earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 11.3 per cent to $166.2 million. All three of the group’s divisions — auto, outdoor and sports — posted earnings growth.