Surprise move caught the market off guard

WOOLWORTHS CEO Ian Moir has seen retail in the southern hemisphere change dramatically over the past five years, and believes retailers will drive the change or become victims of it.

“The question is how to become part of the change and drive it positively for yourself.”

“If you have a look at how the likes of Zara and H&M and the big successful northern retailers were doing, they were creating scale. They were able to bring fast fashion to the market fast at incredible price. For our apparel business, that was key.”

David Jones was the next most obvious fit after Witchery and Mimco, which worked well for Woolworths. Moir started visiting David Jones stores about two years ago. He had learnt some expensive lessons at Country Road, where he had tried to operate in the northern and southern hemispheres but failed.

Stores in the north were closed, and people were made redundant. “It wasn’t fun. It was a lesson learnt for me. Trying to do two hemispheres is very hard and not for the faint-hearted.

“I think we should stick to our knitting and keep it simple.”

How did they keep the deal so quiet? “Being disciplined, and everything was on a needto-know basis. It helped that the Australian market was obsessed at the time with Myer acquiring David Jones, and they didn’t see an international coming. It’s amazing because I went through every store but they didn’t put two and two together. It came as a surprise. That element of surprise worked very well for us — it avoided any trouble on the funding front, on the foreign exchange front, it avoided any interlopers.”