Latest / Best of Business / Tony Caughey: Smith & Caughey’s chair on the company being saved from 2025 closure

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Tony Caughey: Smith & Caughey’s chair on the company being saved from 2025 closure · Best of Business

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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Heather Duper see Ellen Smith.
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  Speaker 2: And Coe's How Good Is This? One of New Zealand's
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  Speaker 2: oldest department stores has been partially saved. The company has
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  Speaker 2: decided to keep a downsized Queen Street stare and then
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  Speaker 2: operate online rather than shutting down completely. Now what this
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  Speaker 2: means is about half the staff will keep their jobs,
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  Speaker 2: but the other one hundred will face redundancy by the
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  Speaker 2: end of the year. Tony Coe is Smith and Coey's chairman. Hey, Tony, Hi,
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  Speaker 2: heall Tony. Now, I'm personally thrilled to see an institution
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  Speaker 2: and this particularly this institution saved. But are you sure
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  Speaker 2: that there is a future for department stores in this
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  Speaker 2: country in the future.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we've looked very hard at this, and we've looked
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  Speaker 3: at our position on us. We have to face reality
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  Speaker 3: that fewer people are going into the city to shop
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  Speaker 3: and we need to adapt accordingly, and we've sort of
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  Speaker 3: been round around and come up with us and we're
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  Speaker 3: pleased that we've been able to do that.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so why are you closing the New Market store.
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  Speaker 2: Newmarket is a place that's bus but then you're keeping
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  Speaker 2: open the Queen Street store when Queen Street is just awful.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, we've looked at that. Our Queen Streets New
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  Speaker 3: Market sales had gone down a lot, and we just
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  Speaker 3: felt that we needed to have the one store on
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  Speaker 3: a limited operation and that was what was going to
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  Speaker 3: work when we ran all the numbers.
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  Speaker 2: Do you foresee Queen Street at some stage going back
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  Speaker 2: to its former glory.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it'll go back to its former glory.
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  Speaker 3: I think it'll change. So it's going to be redeveloped
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  Speaker 3: in a whole lot of ways. When the train station opens,
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  Speaker 3: that's going to pour a lot of people out of there.
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  Speaker 3: We've got the Symphony Center going up across the road
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  Speaker 3: from US, new hotels going into Queen Street. There'll be
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  Speaker 3: different ways of doing things, and I think it will evolve.
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  Speaker 3: We won't see you old days like it was, but
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  Speaker 3: we'll see a new, different sort of Queen Street.
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  Speaker 2: When do you see the economy turning around, particularly for retail.
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  Speaker 3: Well, one hopes that when into strates start to come
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  Speaker 3: off that the year more consumer confidence around because it's
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  Speaker 3: been pretty rough. I can tell you and you know,
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  Speaker 3: I think it will get better, but it's it's not
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  Speaker 3: going to be overnight.
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  Speaker 2: When are you picking the ocr cup? You're going for October?
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  Speaker 1: Picking your brains here, I'll.
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  Speaker 3: Be guided by the experts. I used to sit on
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  Speaker 3: the Monitary Policy Committee, so I have a little understanding.
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  Speaker 2: Of how did you Tony walk? Go on, then tell
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  Speaker 2: us what you think. You're basically an expert.
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  Speaker 3: No, no, I'll leave it to the experts.
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  Speaker 2: Jeez, hate, what do you want it? Do you want
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  Speaker 2: to weigh in on where Adrian was actually a good
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  Speaker 2: governor or not?
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't want to weigh in on that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, listen, tell me what is it that's changed. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: this must have been an option that you considered when
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  Speaker 2: you first announced that you were going to shut the
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  Speaker 2: place down. What changed?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we did look at it. We were looking
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  Speaker 3: at a range of things. I think we just looked
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  Speaker 3: a bit harder with a fresh look, to see if
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  Speaker 3: we could make it work. We already focused very hard
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  Speaker 3: on things, and we were able to massage numbers in
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  Speaker 3: a way that we felt confident that this would happen.
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  Speaker 3: We could make this work.
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  Speaker 2: Oh brilliant. Well, listen, beast of luck with it. I
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  Speaker 2: really hope it succeeds. That's Tony Coe, the chairman of
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  Speaker 2: Smith and Coe's.
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