Australia is a veritable graveyard when it comes to the fortunes of South African entities especially retailers trying their luck Down Under. Pick n Pay tried with Franklins and eventually sold that unit in 2012 after burning through a boatload of cash.
The canonical example is the department store David Jones, which Woolworths bought for roughly R21 billion in 2014. It sold that business in 2022 for R1.6 billion, resulting in a loss of more than R27 billion given exchange rate dynamics. Its Country Road Group continues to struggle, despite various attempts at reorganising that unit.
Mr Price, too, tried to launch its Mr Price Home and core Mr Price concepts in that market and elected to put that subsidiary into administration in 2019.
