David Jones is open, the tills are busy and the receivers want everyone to know it. FTI Consulting says stores in Australia and New Zealand remain fully operational, with foot traffic and sales at record levels since its appointment. Read that in the right light. A receiver appointed by an inventory-backed lender, heading into Black Friday and Christmas, has every reason to move stock quickly. Strong trading is the plan. It is not proof the business has a future.
One store carries all the New Zealand risk
New Zealand’s exposure is narrow but concentrated. David Jones has a single store here, in Newmarket, opened in 2019. That means one landlord relationship, one set of local suppliers and concession staff, and one retail strip whose neighbours have been trading off the foot traffic a department store is supposed to generate.
The ‘stores remain trading’ headline reassures shoppers. It says very little to the businesses whose revenue depends on that store still being there in 2027.
The receivers answer to the stock lender
Two processes are running side by side. McGrathNicol is voluntary administrator, working for the broad creditor pool. FTI is receiver, appointed by Hilco Global, which holds security over David Jones’ stock. Their incentives are not the same.
Inside Retail points to the Hilco-backed Mosaic Brands collapse as the template, where the lender’s primary commercial incentive was converting stock into cash over Christmas, not preserving the business or protecting unsecured creditors. FTI says replenishment orders are now being placed with suppliers that have confirmed trading agreements, while conceding “some limited instances of brand partners withdrawing from some stores.”
The losses explain why the lender is in charge. David Jones lost $74 million in FY2023/24, and that widened to $95.5 million in FY2024/25.
Not every landlord bought the same protection
The Australian landlord disclosures are the most useful numbers in this saga. Vicinity Centres has four David Jones stores worth about $34 million, or 2.4% of gross rental income, was owed $2.2 million in unpaid rent at 31 October, and holds no bank guarantees on any of them. Scentre Group, by contrast, has David Jones at 1.8% of rent and holds $30 million in bank guarantees.
Scentre chief executive Elliott Rusanow says the landlord made “a generous offer” to owner Anchorage Capital Partners that was rejected. Generous or not, Scentre walks into the receivership with a buffer and Vicinity does not.
That gap is the lesson for New Zealand commercial landlords. Legacy anchor leases were often signed on the assumption the anchor was the safest tenant in the building. Any owner with a long-dated department store lease and thin security terms should be revisiting it now.
Cheap anchor space is about to be repriced
There is an upside, and analysts are not shy about it. Scentre reportedly charged David Jones less than half the rent per square metre it charged other tenants. Shaun O’Sullivan, national director of retail at M3 Property, says some department stores pay $100 per square metre for space that could be backfilled at about $500.
The catch is time. O’Sullivan warns it is “likely to take 12 months or more” to design, lease and deliver a new scheme. Urbis director Elissa Stewart suggests swapping one anchor for several mini-majors, arguing “the combined power of those three tenants can be more than a department store.” For Newmarket’s neighbours, a year of hoardings is a real cost even if the end state is better.
Suppliers are at the back of the queue
Suppliers have it worst. Stress was visible months ago, when David Jones imposed a 20-week repayment schedule on some suppliers. Mal Chia, managing director of Ecom Nation, is blunt about unsecured creditors owed for goods already delivered: “You may only get cents on the dollar. You’re at the back of the queue.” His advice for undelivered stock is simpler: “If you’re still holding that stock, don’t send it.”
Any New Zealand brand supplying Newmarket should be checking its exposure this week, not waiting for the administrator’s report.
A demand story it is not
Retail strategist Juanita Neville-Te Rito of RX Group says some stores still perform well, with $2 billion in sales still going through the business, and that the failure was expanding into too many less relevant locations. That is the right diagnosis. Customers did not abandon David Jones. Its footprint outgrew its economics.
What happens next turns on whether a buyer wants the strong stores once Christmas stock is cleared. If Newmarket makes that cut, Auckland keeps its anchor. If it does not, the landlord gets a repricing opportunity and local suppliers get a lesson in where unsecured creditors sit. Either way, record foot traffic this month answers the lender’s question, not theirs.
Sources
- RNZ: David Jones stores remain trading as receivers provide update (2026-11-09)
- NZ Herald: David Jones enters voluntary administration after talks with landlords collapse (2026-11-04)
- The Post: Unpaid rent and stripped shelves, inside the battle over David Jones (2026-11-05)
- Inside Retail NZ: What a David Jones administration could mean for stores, suppliers and staff (2026-11-04)
- ABC News: David Jones administration and receivership (2026-11-05)
- ASX: Vicinity Centres Trust announcement (2026-11-05)
- SMH: The end of the department store era (2026-11-07)
- Commercial Real Estate: David Jones collapse puts shopping centre landlords at a crossroads (2026-11-06)
- Inside Retail Australia: What a David Jones administration could mean for stores, suppliers and staff (2026-11)
- Newstalk ZB: Australian retailer David Jones collapses – is there a way to save it? (2026-11-06)
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