Aussie reshuffle shows depth of Woolies' woes
Share price suffers as group counts cost of expensive expansion
John Dixon's axing after less than a year at the helm of Woolworths' Australia business points to the severity of the issues facing the South African retailer in its biggest foreign adventure to date. Its share price has fallen more than 40% over the past three years as the investment in David Jones has failed to meet expectations. Woolworths bought the David Jones department store chain in 2014 for about $2-billion (about R21.5-billion at the time). Dixon was appointed CEO in 2016, after leading a turnaround strategy at Marks & Spencer. Four years after the acquisition, the one-time best-performing retail stock on the local bourse has had to write down the investment by R6.9-billion, blaming a downturn in the Australian retail sector and poor or delayed execution of some company initiatives. Woolworths shares peaked in November 2015 and are now some 45% off those levels. For this year alone they are almost 10% lower. MRP, without a food segment, is 6% firmer this year, along with S...
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