David Jones, the Australian department store chain with a single New Zealand store at Westfield Newmarket in Auckland, went into voluntary administration and receivership on Thursday 5 November, and shoppers holding its gift cards are being told to spend them while they still can.
The Newmarket store is still open. RNZ reported that the chain’s physical and online stores will keep trading under the control of the receivers while they review the business, but that the future of the Auckland shop is uncertain.
The New Zealand company, David Jones (NZ) Pty Limited, is part of the group-wide insolvency. David McGrath and Joseph Hansell of FTI Consulting have been appointed receivers of the New Zealand business, and Andrew Grenfell and Kare Johnstone of McGrathNicol are its voluntary administrators, according to the NZ Herald. The receivers were appointed by the group’s main lender, a specialist in distressed debt, while the David Jones board appointed the administrators.
The 188-year-old retailer was founded in Sydney in 1838 and employs more than 6000 people across 38 stores, 37 of them in Australia and one in New Zealand. No staff figure has been published for the Newmarket store, but the Herald reported that New Zealand store managers were on the call when staff were told about the company’s future on Thursday morning.
The collapse follows a breakdown in rent talks with landlords, most notably Scentre Group, which runs the Westfield shopping centres on both sides of the Tasman. Scentre chief executive Elliott Rusanow told BusinessDesk that “They have not paid rent since September and therefore are in breach.” Scentre says it made an offer that would have let the chain keep trading and that the private equity owner, Anchorage Capital Partners, turned it down.
Anchorage bought David Jones from South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings for less than A$100 million, International Business Times reported. The Australian parent lost A$95.5 million before tax in the year to June 2025.
The New Zealand arm was small and shrinking. The Herald reported that its revenue fell 11.3 per cent to $26 million in the year to 28 June 2025, and that it lost $4.4 million, mostly because of a write-down on its lease. Without that write-down the loss would have been $231,000, down from $856,000 a year earlier. BusinessDesk reported that auditor PwC had flagged material uncertainty about whether the business could carry on as a going concern.
Chief executive Erica Berchtold said the company would work with the administrators, the receivers and its lender. “We have a well-developed plan on how to reset the business for the future,” she said.
FTI Consulting’s Christopher Hill blamed the trading environment, rising costs, an outdated store footprint and supply chain problems. He described administration and receivership as “an opportunity to restructure the business”. McGrathNicol will now run a process seeking either fresh capital or a buyer for the business as a going concern.
For New Zealand shoppers the biggest worry is gift cards. If a retailer is wound up, gift card holders become unsecured creditors and rank behind secured lenders, so they may get back only a fraction of the card’s value or nothing at all. Australian consumer advocate Erin Turner said that “The best thing you can do is use any gift card you already hold as fast as possible”, RNZ reported. She also advised people not to buy new David Jones gift cards for now.
Gift cards were still being accepted in stores and online on Thursday, but the administrators had not said whether that would continue. Queensland University of Technology retail expert Gary Mortimer said receivers sometimes honour gift cards with strings attached. He pointed to the Barbeques Galore collapse, where “If you had a $100 gift card, you had to spend $200 in store to redeem that $100.”
Customers with a lay-by or deposit were advised to pay the balance in full as soon as possible or negotiate a refund. Anyone who paid by credit card for an online order that never arrives can ask their bank for a chargeback. In New Zealand, the Consumer Guarantees Act also gives shoppers rights against manufacturers for faulty goods if a retailer cannot help.
The Newmarket store was already losing some of its biggest brands. Country Road Group confirmed to BusinessDesk that its five brands will leave the store beginning in early 2027. A company spokesperson said “David Jones remains a valued retail partner.” BusinessDesk also reported that Sportscraft and other suppliers had registered security interests against the company to protect their stock.
This is the second time David Jones has had to rethink its New Zealand presence. It took over the old Kirkcaldie and Stains department store in Wellington in 2016, then closed it in June 2022, leaving the two-level, 7000 square metre Newmarket store as its only site in the country.
The failure adds to a hard year for New Zealand fashion and department store retail. Cue Clothing went into receivership in September, and New Zealand company failures have hit a decade high this year as households cut back on clothing and other discretionary spending.
No decision has been made yet on which David Jones stores will close or how many jobs will go. Union leaders in Australia have said their priority is keeping as many people in work as possible.
Do you still shop at David Jones in Newmarket, or are you holding a gift card you now plan to spend? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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