Customers cashing in
ALL goods are priced to clear at the Cairns Central Shopping Centre’s Roger David store as the closing men’s fashion chain sells enough stock to pay off its employees.
The Roger David store in Cairns has 10 staff, including full-time, part-time and casual workers who will need to look for new jobs when the store closes.
KordaMentha Restructuring spokesman Michael Smith said the Cairns store was the second-largest in Queensland, just behind the store at Pacific Fair on the Gold Coast.
“The administrators want to sell as much stock as they can, as quickly as they can to help raise money for em- ployee entitlements,” he said.
“We’re estimating early to mid-December for the closure date, but it’s too early to say which stores will close earlier or later.
“It depends on how sales go. As Cairns is one of the largest it could take time to sell everything off, but it’s hard to tell.”
Roger David has announced the closure of 57 stores after going into administration four weeks ago.
All stock from Roger David’s warehouses have been shipped to stores in an effort to clear it.
Everything is on sale at heavy discounts of up to 60 per cent off.
Mr Smith said sales had been strong across the board in the four weeks since the company went into adminis- tration on October 18.
Roger David employs 98 people at 15 stores across Queensland.
Administrator Craig Shepard of KordaMentha Restructuring said, while there had been some interest from buyers, the retail clothing landscape was too tough to make it work.
“Everyone recognised the strength and the affection for the brand, but it did not pass the viability test,” he said.
“Roger David was a victim of rising fixed costs, fierce competition from online and global competitors and cautious consumer demand.”