Fashion victim
Edcon's near-death experience
The Edcon bailout deal two weeks ago helped avert a corporate collapse that could have been SA’s equivalent of the Lehman Brothers implosion. Adele Shevel reports.
WHAT IT MEANS: Jury still out on whether new deal will restore former glory. Loss of credit extension and fashion sense big drawbacks. The untold story of just how close Bernie Brookes got to being the man to turn out the lights at SA’s largest clothing retailer, Edcon, is the stuff of nightmares. Not just for its 48,000 staff but for the entire country, which is largely unaware of just how close Edcon came to tipping over and triggering a chain reaction that would have rocked the banks, property companies and consumers. Since the brothers Morris and Eli Ross opened their first store on September 6 1929 in Joubert Street, Jo’burg under the name "M&E Ross, trading as Edgars", the company has become a pillar of SA’s business landscape. (Sydney Press, who began as a casual worker in 1935, was the chairman when it listed on the JSE in 1946, clocking up £536,000 in turnover from its 10 stores). As it stands, one in five South Africans shop regularly at one of Edcon’s 1,542 stores – at i...
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