Cheapy, I think you are definitely onto something - low margin businesses are very susceptible to economic shocks.
The fact Grahger Retail has stopped buying and the SP has slowly decreased, leads me to strongly believe that the increase was mostly speculation due to Mr Reich.
A purely numbers perspective here, looking at seek.com one would find adverts of 18 positions in stores, excluding staff for new stores and temp cover staff.
According to stats on their website, they have 356 stores, we'll round this up to 360.
At 18 vacancies, that is 5% staff turnover rate, the oldest advert is apparently from 27 days ago.
Lets be conservative and say there are another ~18 opportunities advertised internally, i.e not open to the general public.
That's a 10% staff turnover rate, what can one infer from this?
a: staff are being set unrealistic expectations that cannot actually be met?
b: are staff privy information not known to the public?
c: are stores and senior management at head office so disconnected that staff just give-in and move on?
Whatever the answer, a 10% staff turnover rate speaks for itself and implies the picture is not pretty, at all
I suggest keeping an eye on their vacancies.
Your point about the turnaround risk, totally agree here.
Again, having a look at their website reveals new roles having been created, COO and General Manager Critical Path and Efficiencies.
The CIO and General Manager Marketing roles are no longer present, however, have they actually increased their Cost of Doing Business?
Going back to my nuts and bolts view;
you're locked into lease contracts
stock flow issue due to the coronavirus - google "coronavirus supply chain"
sales decline
potentially increased Cost of Doing Business
discounting and moving stock only erodes margin
As Cheapy mentioned, susceptibility to economic shocks and turnaround risk, how does one turn this around?
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