Sam's Warehouse was an Australian brand of discount retail stores, similar to

Crazy Clark's Crazy Clark's Discount Variety Store was an Australian company that operated over 150 discount variety stores in its chain, across Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia. The company also owned and operated a chai ...

. It was founded in 2008 after

The Warehouse The Warehouse Group (TWG) was founded by Stephen Tindall in 1982, and is the largest retail group operating in New Zealand. It is a corporate group that consists of The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Torpedo7, Noel Leeming, 1-day and TheMar ...

sold its Australian operations to Australian Discount Retail, and the stores were required to be re-branded.

History

In 2000,

expanded its New Zealand chain of discount stores into the Australian retail market. It acquired the

Clint's Crazy Bargains Clint's Crazy Bargains was established in November 1978, as a partnership between David and Kerry Rickards, and Norm and Sue O'Neill. It was a retailer of discount variety merchandise including gifts, cosmetics, clothing, books, craft goods, har ...

and Silly Solly's retail chains. At the time of purchase, these chains had around 117 stores. In 2003 the company built a $33 million (AUD) distribution centre in Queensland, to service the country. However, in 2005, the Australian operation was under-performing. Sales for 2005 were at $518.8 million (AUD), compared with $567.3 million (AUD) in 2004. The Warehouse Group Limited announced in November 2005 that it had entered into a conditional agreement to sell The Warehouse Australia business to Catalyst Investment Managers and its parent PPM Capital Limited (together, Catalyst) and

Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners Castle Harlan is a private equity firm based in New York City. The company focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Founded in 1987, Castle Harlan invests in controlling interest ...

, acting on behalf of the CHAMP I and CHAMP II funds (CHAMP) for A$92 million (NZ$99m). The new entity was known as Australian Discount Retail (ADR). As part of the transaction, The Warehouse Australia's Sydney Head Office would be sold to Investec Wentworth Specialised Property Trust. The Warehouse Australia, Crazy Clark's and Tasmanian chain Chickenfeed were now all owned by Australian Discount Retail, almost giving the company a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

over the discount trading market in Australia. Due to the change in ownership, Australian Discount Retail was required to re-brand all Australian Warehouse stores to avoid any potential brand confusion. At the start of 2008, the company began re-branding all stores with the name, "Sam's Warehouse". By the end of 2008, all

stores in Australia had been completely re-branded. At the start of 2009, despite the near monopoly, Australian Discount Retail went into voluntary

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...

with debts of over $90 million. The size and scale of Australian Discount Retail made this the biggest collapse of an Australian retail business in over five years. Shop Distributive and Allied Retailers Association's Joe De Bruyn stated that the collapse should not just be blamed on the

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

, but the nature of its merchandise and poor merchandising management. On 23 March 2009 it was announced that the company had been sold to Retail Adventures Pty Ltd, a company owned by Australian millionaire Jan Cameron, the former owner of Kathmandu, for an undisclosed sum. Cameron and the CEO of Retail Adventures, David Young, announced in October 2010 that they wished to simplify the number of brands owned by the company and that Sam's Warehouse, Crazy Clark's and Chickenfeed would all be merged into Chickenfeed, with the slogan "Bargains with a Smile", stating that the Chickenfeed brand was the most profitable. However, considering Retail Adventures has gone into administration and is closing Chickenfeed stores outside of Tasmania, this is unlikely to occur. In late 2014, Sam's Warehouse was being sold to other retailers. The last of the stores were closed or sold in mid-2015.

References

External links

Sam's Warehouse Website (Now Redirects you to Amino Z)

Now Redirects you to Amino Z’s website Which is an bodybuilding, health and fitness goods.
{{varietyStores Companies based in Sydney Retail companies established in 2008 Retail companies disestablished in 2015 Discount stores of Australia Defunct retail companies of Australia 2015 disestablishments in Australia Australian companies established in 2008