David Jones enters administration after landlord talks fail, putting 6,000 jobs at risk

David Jones, Australia's oldest department store chain, went into voluntary administration on Thursday morning, Nov. 5, in Sydney. That was Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 4, on the U.S. East Coast. It is the first time the 188-year-old retailer has been in administration.

The board appointed administrators from McGrathNicol. The company's secured lender then installed FTI Consulting as receivers. FTI named Christopher Hill, David McGrath and Joanne Dunn as receivers and managers of the holding company, ACP Riley Street Midco Pty Ltd.

Physical and online stores are still trading under the receivers' control. David Jones employs about 6,000 people across 38 stores in Australia and New Zealand.

How the rent fight ended it

The immediate trigger was a standoff with Scentre Group, which owns the Westfield malls and hosts 17 of the 38 stores. Scentre CEO Elliott Rusanow said David Jones had paid $45 million in rent for the first nine months of 2026, through Sept. 30, and had not paid since. He said that left the retailer "in breach" of its leases.

Rusanow said Scentre made a "generous offer" to owner Anchorage Capital Partners that "would have facilitated the continuation of David Jones trading" and that Anchorage "disappointingly" rejected it. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the proposal involved closing nine stores and swapping bank guarantees for equity. Scentre has not detailed the terms on the record in the material cited here.

Anchorage's side of the story is thinner. CEO Erica Berchtold said the company has "a well-developed plan on how to reset the business for the future" and will work with the administrators, receivers and its secured lender. She has not publicly addressed Scentre's account of the rejected offer.

Scentre told investors it holds about $30 million of a $45 million pool of David Jones bank guarantees across the Westfield Australia and New Zealand portfolio. That is roughly eight months of gross rent, and the guarantees can be applied against unpaid rent. They were a condition of Scentre approving Anchorage's 2023 purchase.

Inside Retail reported that Scentre's David Jones sites carry gross rent of $352 per square metre, against a portfolio average of $942.

The ownership trail

Woolworths Holdings of South Africa paid $2.1 billion for the then-listed company in 2014. Anchorage bought it from Woolworths in 2023 for $100 million. Anchorage has now lost operational control.

Inside Retail reported nearly $170 million in losses on the balance sheet, a $10 million lifeline from Anchorage to buy stock, and financing from distressed lender Hilco Global. The retailer had been aiming to trade through Christmas.

Anchorage has previously blamed a "prolonged period of weak consumer confidence and significant structural change across the department store sector."

Hill of FTI pointed to "the current retail trading environment, rising costs, a significant and outdated retail footprint, and supply chain challenges." He said administration and receivership give "breathing space and an opportunity to restructure."

Closures, creditors and what comes next

FTI said a process seeking offers for a recapitalisation or a sale as a going concern begins immediately, run by McGrathNicol. FTI has said it will update on closures and job losses. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that stores at Westfield Parramatta and Carindale are likely to close.

The Guardian reported that analysts expect outer-suburban and regional mall stores to take the hardest hit and CBD flagships to be spared. That is an expectation, not an announced list.

Marketing academic Jana Bowden of Macquarie University said the city flagships "have retained their upper end airs and graces, but the suburban stores leave a lot to be desired." She called the collapse a "death knell" for the department store format.

The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association said creditors are scheduled to meet next week. Its national secretary, Gerard Dwyer, said the priority is keeping as many jobs as possible. "Smaller is better than no David Jones," he told the ABC.

Unsecured creditors are the most exposed. That group includes product suppliers, some of which had already begun redirecting stock to their own outlets, and customers holding unredeemed gift vouchers. Angus Kidman of comparison site Finder said that if no buyer emerges, "that gift card will almost certainly be worthless." He said stores appear to be accepting cards for now.

The Christmas season is the immediate test. In Adelaide, the Rundle Mall store's Magic Cave is due to open after the Christmas Pageant on Nov. 14. Whether that store, and the other 37, are still open by then depends on what the receivers decide in the coming days.

The open question is who, if anyone, bids. A sale or recapitalisation of a chain with 38 leases, a rent dispute with its biggest landlord and roughly $170 million in disclosed losses would have to settle the Scentre dispute first.