DickSmith_logo.png

The Australian icon electronics retailer, Dick Smith, has lapsed into voluntary administration this morning, with its creditors appointing receivers to the business as well.

The company announced that it had explored alternative funding but the directors believed that this could not, even if successful, have been enough to meet the company’s short-term funding requirements to order inventory over the next four to six weeks.

The directors of the company believe that there was little option but to appoint a voluntary administrator, with a view to protecting the interests of the company’s owners, creditors, employees, suppliers and others. Firm McGrathNichol has been appointed as voluntary administrator.

The news follows developments yesterday, when Dick Smith’s shares were placed into a trading halt, pending an announcement to the stock exchange about its funding position.

Dick Smith’s major creditors, National Australia Bank and HSBC, have appointed James Stewart from Ferrier Hodgson as receiver, according to reports from News Corp.

The roles of administrator and receiver are different, and while it is beyond the scope of this piece to go into those complexities in detail, basically an administrator’s role is to investigate the company’s affairs, report on those to the company’s creditors, with a view to determining whether the company should be rearranged, wound up, or returned to standard operation. A receiver, however, has a primary obligation to those that appointed him. In this case, NAB and HSBC want their debts repaid, and a receiver will work to sell sufficient assets in order to secure funds for those creditors.

We understand that the business may be broken up, with the New Zealand operation considered quite a profitable and likely candidate for carving up and selling off. How the Australian operations could be restructured is anyone’s guess, but what we can probably safely speculate is that if the Dick Smith brand survives this period, it’ll reemerge a little differently, and probably not quite as big as it once was.

With major outlets calling this the likely demise of the Dick Smith retail brand, we can only wait and see.

23 Comments
newest
oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
zeitgeb3r

I’m a chump. My online orders and gift cards will never see the light of day. The execs were prolly the ones to cash out 6 months prior. They started shredding papers 6 months ago to destroy evidence.

Lance Haeden

Wow, looks like we need more Administrators. Thanks for covering this Ausdroid – as previously mentioned your coverage was concise and to the point (and clearer than most of the mass media.
I certainly think it is Android related – I bought my last Android Product (my second Chromecast :-() from DSE (probably due to fire sale discounting).

Chris

Thanks for the discussion everyone, and the questions around how this might be relevant to Ausdroid. As some have cottoned on, they are (were?) a major tech seller in Australia; they sold a variety of Android tablets and phones, and may well into the future as well. Sure, it’s been covered on other news sites as well, but it came on our radar as we’ve previously pointed at DSE as a place to buy certain mobile and related gear. Equally, if a company like JB HiFi or Harvey Norman went bust as well, we’d be talking about that. Yatango has… Read more »

Level380

Pfft, what discussion? No discussion here. Its turned into a personal troll attack cause someone didn’t agree and dared question the content! The discussion ended many posts ago!

Lovely bunch of ‘readers’ you have here guys! Keep up the great work!

vijay alapati

wish they do a fire sale instead, want to grab a curved OLED tv :p

Shannon Lang

After walking into these stores over the years and seeing less and less tech stuff and the pricing in some instances being double of Jaycar, I’m not really surprised, to be honest.

Level380

Not sure how this is Android related…..?

Björn Rostron

They sell android related objects?

Beside the fact they are (were) a major technology retailer in Australia.

Level380

Major tech retailer? irrelevant really, not Android related. This story has been well and truly covered off elsewhere, It wasn’t needed to be covered here at all, its just link bait really.

cjdacka

I didn’t know it happened until I hopped on to Ausdroid this morning and this is relevant to any Australian who buys technology.

Level380

Well clearly ausdroid must have been your first point of call, its all over EVERY other news site, twiiter, facebook even. How could you have missed it? It was being reported last night!

Regardless, would your day have changed if ausdroid kept to the android reporting and didn’t cover it?

cjdacka

Geese, why are you getting so worked up over this? It’s just a bloody article that has been posted.

Dylan

Have to agree with cjdacka. It is relevant to Android and I only learnt of this from Ausdroid. There could be potential savings on Chromebooks and Android devices.

shaboogen

Why are you being such an asshole about this?

Level380

Oh how dare I have a opinion hey shaboogen!? This isn’t a android story. Deal with it. last time I looked I came to AUSDROID not news dot com dot au

Newcastle Guardian

Level380, look obviously you’re suffering from pre-school holiday withdrawal symptom, just settle down, you’ll be able to return to school in just a couple of weeks. In the meantime, just let all the adults here go about their business please.

Level380

Thanks Newcastle for joining the party. Always love one post wonders like you who come in only to seagull. I hope this made your own poor sad lonely school holidays better for you. I’m glad I cheered you up for a few seconds! Slow clap for you!

Newcastle Guardian

One Post Wonder, well there you go, looks like when you get into primary school, they’ll teach you how to read and then you’ll be able to catch up on a whole new world.

Martin Dolan

Thanks for your opinion Level380, you don’t think its android related, we do. You don’t think you’re being an asshole, and we think you are being an asshole. You are right about one thing (and only one) everyone has an opinion. So deal with it.

Level380

The only ‘assholes’ here, are the ones who bring the convo down to this level by resorting to this level of language. How about some intelligent conversation or is this beyond your scope of the language?

Yassie

It’s a much better written article than anywhere else tbh. Great job Ausdroid!

Peter Massey

What’s that got to do with anything?

Read the Ausdroid About Us (http://ausdroid.net/about-us/) and it says:
“Ausdroid is Australia’s award-winning independent media outlet covering all things mobile and personal technology”.

DSE was a retailer of both mobile and personal technology, so more than worthy as a post.

Level380

Finally a intelligent response! Well yes that would cover it off!

Thanks for not dragging it down to the level others feel it should be taken to!