Masters....GONE!

Heard on the radio this morning that the hardware chain - Masters - is to be closed down/sold off due to unsustainable losses of over $600mill last year. Not sure about previous years but must have been ordinary I suspect.

 

Announcement is on the Masters website.

.....and they will be honouring gift cards.

 

I read about it in the paper this morning.

The question I've got, is there an opportunity for the average proprety investor in this?

 

Me too, who next??

 

It may cause Woolies shares to go down; so a good time to buy some after the drop, possibly.

 

Cheap reno goods? Fingers crossed for massive sales

 

It's a shame, I didn't shop there much but at least there was some competition for the rip off merchant Bunnings.

 

You have any ideas PTBear?

 

What a massive stuff up - if you are going to step up and buy every piece of land across from Bunnings at least have a realistic 10 year plan.....these guys are hopeless. Sounds like they received some expert advice on stock mgt and sales from Dick Smith.

Cheers Ivan

 

Wesfarmers and specifically Bunnings will be rubbing their hands together.
Will be interesting to see how it plays out with either the sale of the business to another party(highly unlikely given its recent performance) or winding down the business completely.
Either way I think that they will be having some deep discounts moving forward to make their balance sheet look a bit better no matter what happens.
Also site leases and terms could be interesting if they were to dissolve the business.
But working and managing a "big box" retailer for some 25 years my thoughts go to their 6,000 employees who may be looking for another job in the near future.

 

Their new Penrith site just opened this weekend. Lots of adds on at the movies for them too.

 

If I were Bunnings, I'd be jacking up prices big time. No more competition...I'd certainly take advantage of that.

 

So they have 2 poor options in front of them now.

1: Sell the business at a massive loss but who would want to even buy it?

2: Close all the stores and sell/lease the sites. This is going to take ages as they are all purpose build massive bulky goods sites. I can't even think of another retailer (besides Bunnings) who would need sites like those. Maybe an opportunity for Costco to roll out heaps of stores at a fire sale price?

 

another casualty in the battle between big retailers .

In Sydney we go to bunnings but the closest big hardware store near our weekender is masters at heatherbrae .

For me bunnings is a much better store , better choices , wider range and they seem to act as a preferred employer for experienced tradies who don't want to ( or cant ) work in their trade any more . level of knowledge in staff is much higher than at masters.

big complex built 2-3 years ago with other retailers in the same complex , BCF etc who will obviously be affected as well .

wonder if this is a move by their American partners to close up and then cherry pick the profitable stores . one would assume that bunnings would be interested in some well positioned stores , especially if the rents are good ..

It reminds me of the battle between ToysRUs and World for Kids a few years ago . Luckily our kids were kids when that was going on , so lots of choice .

Cliff

 

Lots of the Masters sites are very close to current Bunnings sites due to WOW wanting to take Bunnings on head to head.
Costco may be a good option but I think if it become a sell off of sites that they would be cheery picked by businesses.

 

Isn't Bunnings expanding to England?
Have to feel bad for the staff and the Property owners.

 

Exactly, I recall the Bunnings store at Joondalup sat vacant for ages when Bunnings moved into a new store a few kms down the road (the old one may even still be vacant, who knows)

 

It's not just masters closing but also Home Timber & Hardware, Thrifty-Link Hardware and Plants Plus from what I understand - 500 stores

 

Holy crap those are a lot of stores. Anyone know what the distribution by state is?

 

Old Joondalup Bunnings has been turned into a 2nd hand car yard.