The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Oz channel takes another hit as receiver moves in on WOW

Weak sales, property debts take their toll

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Another of Australia’s struggling bricks-and-mortar gadget retailers is in trouble, with the WOW Audio Visual Superstores chain put up for sale by receivers Ferrier Hodgson.

The company had expanded its original operation in Cairns, Queensland, to launch nine other stores in Queensland and five in other states (Albury and Coffs Harbour in NSW, Canberra, Shepparton in Victoria and Darwin in the Northern Territory).

While being read as another symptom of Australia’s weak retail environment, the company operating the business has had to deal with a $AU20 million debt from a property developer’s collapse. When property developer Aristocon went into administration in 2010, it owed $AU27 million to WOW.

WOW’s stores were built by Aristocon, and the two companies formerly shared board members.

It owes $AU26 million to unsecured creditors, which much of that owed to vendors and distributors, and has 500 staff. ®

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

More from The Register

Thanks, NSA: Amazon sales of Orwell's 1984 rise 9,500%
Citizens of Oceania bone up on the new reality
 breaking news
BBC lied to Parliament about doomed £100m IT monster, thunder MPs
Axed DMI ballooned and burst while watchdogs sang Kumbaya
Microsoft to open Windows Stores inside 600 Best Buy locations
Product showcases 'must be seen to be believed'
 breaking news
Author Iain (M) Banks falls to cancer at 59
Misses the release of his final work
 breaking news
What did the Lehman Brothers implosion look like to a techie?
Insider tells all about the Gnab Gib at Lehmans
It's official: 'tweet' an English word – not just in the avian sense
If the Oxford English Dictionary says it is so, then it is so
 breaking news
The only Waze is Google: Ad giant tipped to gobble map app 'for $1.3bn'
Pac-Man-satnav-ish upstart in bidding war with Apple, Facebook
 breaking news
1-in-10 e-tomes 'are self-published'... most are 'rubbish' says book ed
Publishing man scoffs at go-it-alone writers, ursines still fouling in forests
 breaking news