By Sarah Falson

AUBURN: The former Retravision New South Wales flagship store, Auburn Retravision in Sydney’s inner west, entered administration yesterday with Christopher Hill at PPB Chartered Accounts assigned as administrator.

The Auburn store, co-owned by Julie Rowland and Sandra Milgate, was one of the seven Retravision NSW stores that had not signed on with either the Northern or Southern stable as of yesterday when the group’s divisions were renamed Northern, Southern and Western.

"There were 120 Retravision NSW stores to start with and 22 of these went to other groups. There were 11 stores that closed and there are seven which are undecided and have until Friday 30 March to clarify their position. They will have to sign the Interim License Agreement offered by other companies or they will need to remove their signs on 30 March," said Retravision national CEO, Keith Perkin, yesterday.

Current.com.au has heard that representatives of PPB Chartered Accounts were yesterday on-site at the Auburn store – situated at the Auburn Home Mega Mall on Sydney’s Parramatta Road – explaining to customers that the store had closed.

“Two staff were standing at the closed doors, informing customers that it was all finished, and handing out their business cards. They where also taking down customers details, saying that they would be investigating their purchases,” said an unnamed representative of the store.

Current.com.au understands that half the Auburn store site will be sold to The Good Guys, and will be used to expand their existing store also at the Auburn Home Mega Mall, though neither Christopher Hill nor a spokesperson at PPB Chartered Accountants were available to confirm this today.

Sadly, Retravision Auburn’s closure coincided with the otherwise positive news that the Retravision brand is now one step closer to achieving its ‘One Retravision’ goal, which will see the group function as one company.

According to Retravision Southern CEO, Brian Kelly, the re-branding exercise was carried out because the area names of ‘QLD’, ‘Vic-Tas’ and ‘WA’ no longer accurately represented the groups, since the former two now contain members of the defunct NSW group.

“Some Retravision NSW shops have now joined the Vic-Tas business, but Vic-Tas as a name no longer reflects the nature of the business. We’ve got more stores now and the name, Southern Group, more accurately represents us,” Kelly told Current.com.au this afternoon.