After 188 years, department store David Jones has been put into administration over unpaid rent at some of its 38 Australia and New Zealand stores, as well as long-term financial woes.
The administrators are expected to manage the business, likely closing some unprofitable stores, until a new owner can be found. The future of its more than 5,600 employees is still unclear.
Voluntary administrators McGrathNicol said on Thursday that David Jones’s physical and online stores would keep trading for now, while the business is restructured.
So how did a once prestigious store – which until 2011 boasted “There’s no other store like David Jones” – get to this point?