Brierley's loss-making Aussie retailer sells off further stores

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Thursday 24th August 2000

The Brierley owned Australian retail group, Vox, has palmed off a further 65 of its stores.

The sale is to retail appliance group Betta Stores Limited, and follows the sale of 22 stores earlier this year to Harvey Norman.

Vox Group chief executive, Andrew Griffiths, says the sale is central to the restructure process which began in August last year, and means that Vox's portfolio of 119 stores will be reduced to 36 later this year.

Brierley Investments bought the Vox retail group in 1994 and had 250 retail outlets on acquisition, but almost immediately began sloughing them off, including closing 33 smaller retail outlets and opening six larger "category killer" format stores.

In spite of Brierley reportedly sinking up to $300 million into the electrical and appliance chain, it has not made a profit for several years, leading Australian media the dub the continuing problems with the group the "Vox pox". In its 1999 annual report Brierley said the Vox chain had made a $26 million loss, following an $87 million loss in 1998.

Vox and the Molokai Ranch investment in Hawaii are believed to be the two especially sharp thorns in Brierley's side. Brierley itself has described the Molokai Ranch as its "most challenging and perplexing investment", and will no doubt be relieved that Vox will be down to only 36 stores by year's end.

Vox says on the back of its latest sale it will be resizing the company, including closing the regional office in Sydney; downsizing the head office in Brisbane and closing warehouses in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria and WA.

Brierley is due to announce its full year 2000 result sometime next month.

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