By Claire Reilly

Since entering into administration three months ago, Retravision Southern has faced a number of stores defecting from the Retravision brand to join competing buying groups, as well as some stores closing altogether.

Now, as the company winds up its central accounting infrastructure and most of the former Southern stores have made the decision about where they will move, the CEO of Retravision Australia Paul Holt has spoken to Current.com.au about the stores that have departed the group and the stores that remain.

“We have migrated 45 Southern stores so far,” Hold told Current. “That said, these numbers have fluctuated in recent weeks and I expect that fluctuation to continue. We are delighted that these stores have decided to remain with others in the our group

“We’ve lost some really good operators from the mix too," he added. "That’s a great shame to our organisation."

Holt's comments come after the CEO of Betta Stores Retail, Graeme Cunningham, spoke to Current.com.au about the benefits that former Retravision Southern stores would bring to his group.

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Holt also noted that the company was working to get supplier accounts “up and running effectively from the wind down of the central accounting system,” following the announcement in May that Retravision would move towards individual store accounts. He said that Retravision was making “good progress” towards this outcome.

“Western Retravision has put up a very strong fight over many years to develop and grow its business and I think we made a good fist of that,” he said. “We are going to fight very hard to get a good outcome for every one of the stores that stay in the group going forward.

“That said, it’s clearly time for the independent sector to take a good hard look at rationalising the market under fewer carefully selected brands to create a more robust independent supply chain for the future.

“If the remaining independents can find an effective way of integrating the majority of Retravision’s remaining purchase volume into a single independent group, then this just strengthens the competitive position of all independents against the growing strength of the corporates and simplifies the supply chain for suppliers."