00:01Today is the first day that thousands of retail workers at David Jones will be going into work
00:08with the firm knowledge that they are working in stores that are soon going to have their doors
00:15closed permanently. We learned yesterday, specifically after weeks of speculation, 19
00:22stores for David Jones are going to be closed, expected by the end of the year, following the
00:30Legacy Retailers Voluntary Administration last month. Now, we do know that the receiver has said
00:37that they want to trade these 19 stores through the busy festive season, obviously to recoup cash
00:44at the busiest time of the year. We have Black Friday sales and obviously the Christmas period.
00:49We know that there are 6,000 retail workers at David Jones. We've heard all sorts of numbers
00:55bandied around on how significant the job losses could be in excess of 850. There's been talk by
01:02the union about wanting the receivers to keep on some of those staff that will lose their jobs and
01:08put them into other department stores for David Jones to bring back this idea of a higher retail
01:14experience. It hasn't been confirmed if that's actually going to happen yet. It's also worth
01:19noting that on the other side of the equation, the administrators of David Jones, they are obviously
01:25searching for a buyer to keep this Legacy Retailer going. We know that expressions of interest for buyers
01:32are set to close tomorrow, but we're not expecting for a buyer to be announced in any substantial form for
01:40weeks, months. This is a process that could really drag on. We also know that we have the first
01:46creditors meeting for David Jones next Tuesday. There is going to be hundreds, thousands of brands that are
01:55owed cash by David Jones before it was put into voluntary administration. They're going to have to
02:01lodge their debts. And then next week, we might get a bit of a grapple on really how much cash
02:07this company
02:07was bleeding. We've heard in excess of a hundred million alone to suppliers, but that hasn't been
02:13firmed up. We will also have suppliers making the decision about what they do from here, if they're
02:20going to keep supplying David Jones in its current iteration and wipe off the debts, if they'll see
02:26any money for their debts from the administration process. So this is really a story that is going to
02:33play out for many weeks and months.
