Myer boss John King needn't have gone further than the entrance to its store in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall to realise his huge task ahead.
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But there was a glimmer of hope in this week's results, which showed underlying profit growing 3 per cent, and the fall in sales starting to slow., and Ian Moir, boss of its South African owner Woolworths, described the business as a "burning platform" that had to be fixed, and soon., Moir is now running David Jones himself while it looks for a new CEO.
"Myer is kind of like a large steam ship in a harbour, capable of getting from A to B but it’s got speed boats zipping all around it."grew by a weaker than expected 0.1 per cent month-on-month in January, as cost of living pressures, low wage growth and falling house prices keep a cap on consumer spending.But King, who previously led the British store House of Fraser, says claims that department stores are a dead format have been greatly exaggerated.
The reduction will be significant, but King says all but one of its stores are profitable and he would rather return floor space to landlords than close stores outright.
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