By James Wells and Patrick Avenell
PERTH, WA: Paul Holt, the CEO of Retravision WA, has confirmed the collapse of the Truscotts brand of electrical and furniture retail stores, based in South Australia. In a letter to Retravision WA’s supplying partners, Holt described the Truscotts business as suffering under the weight of “poor management decisions”. He also wrote of how the Retravision WA group had done its best to save the retailer from receivership.
“I am disappointed to advise that we have today decided to appoint Ernst and Young as receivers and managers of the Truscotts Casual Living business based in Adelaide,” wrote Holt on Saturday.
“We have been working with Truscotts for some time now in order to try and find a way to support them to recover from a number of poor management decisions they made earlier this year which led this group to divert attention away from its core electrical business. Regrettably, we have been unable to identify a way for them to restore the financial stability required to underpin future trading.”
The collapse of a key retail business within a buying group often raises questions as to overall stability of the group. Holt moved quickly to assure all interested parties that Retravision WA is in a strong position.
“Whilst this is clearly disappointing news for all concerned, Retravision Western has developed a strong track record in recent years of recovering quickly from setbacks of this nature. Our recent investment in new stores across our footprint will help us to recover the turnover lost from this group and we will focus our energy to recoup lost ground as quickly as possible in South Australia.
“The loss of Truscotts Casual Living will not impact our business in any way and it is very much ‘business as usual’ for all of our supplier partners and store owners in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.”
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