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UP-MARKET department store David Jones is again searching for a new boss having churned through its fourth chief executive in less than five years.
The nation’s oldest department store said chief executive David Thomas has resigned for “personal reasons” after little more than eight months in the role.
“A replacement CEO for David Jones will be announced in due course,” the retailer said.
The latest departure follows Mr Thomas not attending a celebrity studded twoday fashion event at Hobart’s Museum of Old andNew Art this week to launch the retailer’s new autumn and winter collection.
It also follows David Jones recording a sharp slump in sales growth in the weeks leading into Christmas — traditionally a retailer’s busiest trading period — and comes as it overhauls its flagship store in Sydney and rolls out a new gourmet food offer.
David Jones is owned by South African retail group Woolworths Holdings which is led by Ian Moir.
Woolworths shelled out $2.1 billion for David Jones in 2014 but cut its book value by close to one-third last year.
The retail giant, which also owns the Country Road group of fashion labels, has churned through four chief executives sinceAugust 2014, including Paul Zahra, Ian Nairn and John Dixon.
Rival chain Myer is onto its third chief since 2015 as the grand old dames of Australian retail struggle to confront new fast fashioninterlopers, the growth of online shopping and a consumer shift towards specialty stores.
Last month David Jones said sales growth for the six month to December 23 slowed to 1 per cent, well down on the 2.9 per centgrowth it posted for the same period a year earlier.
Like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of stores opening and closing, rose 0.9 per cent, again well down on the 3.3per cent growth notched up a year earlier.
Woolworths has invested heavily in David Jones in ¬recent years, overhauling its private label clothing range, rolling outa gourmet food ¬offering and spending $200 million rejuvenating its Sydney flagship outlet in order to create one of the world’smost glamorous shopping destinations.
While sales growth has slowed at David Jones is has appeared to be faring better than key rival Myer where sales went backwards — dropping by 3.1 per cent — in the year to June 2018.
The change in leadership came as administrators for Ed Harry said they had been unable to find a buyer and would now shutdown the collapsed menswear chain.