With respect to Mr Richards a lot of the content in the article is a re-hash of previous articles Mr Richards has written on Dick Smith and contains significant 'copy-paste' from the article Mr West wrote on Friday in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The most interesting thing in the article is the question of the appropriateness of prices paid for private label goods through Hong Kong which will hopefully be examined further. It is interesting to note that Dick Smith (HK) Ltd (listed as a subsidiary in the 2014 accounts and established in March 2013 in Hong Kong) does not appear to be in external administration (via Ferrier Hodgson and/or McGrathNicol).
Mr West's article is a pretty poor effort in examining the reasons of the collapse of Dick Smith when it is compared to the more forensic investigations undertaken by Forager Funds Management (
https://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/dick-smith-is-the-greatest-private-equity-heist-of-all-time/) and Trevor Sykes in the AFR last Thursday (
http://www.copyright link/business/retail/pierpont-why-dick-smith-was-doomed-20160203-gml2c9). (apologies if the AFR article can't be accessed due to a paywall).
Mr West's article asserts Dick Smith's collapse is due to a potential overstatement of inventory acquired from Woolworths in November 2012. Surely the extreme growth in leverage and questionable inventory purchasing decisions in 2015 caused the collapse - not the valuation of inventory bought three years before the collapse (and likely sold well before late 2015).
My review of Mr West's article is here (
http://hotcopper.com.au/posts/16960872/single). It should be remembered that Mr West was responsible for accusations against News Corp in 2015 for potential tax evasion which were later found during Senate inquiry testimony to be largely groundless and accused various listed Australian property trusts of tax evasion which showed a lack of understanding that trust earnings are taxed in the hands of the beneficiaries (i.e. investors) at their marginal tax rates - not the trust.
