WHS - Warehouse Group

[Onemootpoint]

"The world's biggest holiday shopping bonanza, Singles Day, or 11/11, peaks today. The commercial shopping event similar to back-to-school sales, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US features major discounts from China's retail giants like Alibaba and JD.com. But all indications are that sales are muted sales in this year's spending spree. Which is why Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets ended the week on a downer."

https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/125183/us-eyes-cpi-and-inflation-expectations-apec-meeting-between-biden-and-xi-confirmed

[777]

Warehouse not only ones moving out due to increased rent in Milford Mall.Even if you didn't shop at the Warehouse, it created foot traffic which all malls need.

[Hectorplains]

Warehouse not only ones moving out due to increased rent in Milford Mall.Even if you didn't shop at the Warehouse, it created foot traffic which all malls need.

I guess a gym creates a different kind of ... foot traffic ba dum tss! 

28 years and WHS wanted to stay.  As the Herald observes: "The mall from which The Warehouse Milford trades is owned by Mark Gunton's NZ Retail Property Group, which also owns the popular Westgate where giant American retailer Costco Wholesale has traded from since last year." 

Yes, rents are rising the new benchmark in Auckland is  $5500 per square metre for top prime luxury retail.  JLL NZ head of research Gavin Read said in Auckland's retail market.  "For luxury retailers, size becomes a key consideration, with units in excess of 200 square metres (sqm) proving popular. 

[Hectorplains]

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/421567

What a mess.  Torpedo 7 sales down 25%.  Warehouse down 5%.  No mention of Marketplace in all this.

[winner (n)]

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/421567

What a mess.  Torpedo 7 sales down 25%.  Warehouse down 5%.  No mention of Marketplace in all this.

Keep it secret ........ they never show the balancing number to make it all add up but note that "Total Group sales includes TheMarket, eliminations and other Group operations in addition to the 4 main retail operations detailed above."

This year the number was $2.5m v $9.2m last year

Must mean something ...hmmmm

[winner (n)]

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/421567

What a mess.  Torpedo 7 sales down 25%.  Warehouse down 5%.  No mention of Marketplace in all this.

Groceries up. ... . Means rest of Red Sheds sales down 8%

[lorraina]

Groceries up. ... . Means rest of Red Sheds sales down 8%

Off course the rest of Red Shed sales are down.
Groceries taking up valuable higher margin space.

[BlackPeter]

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/421567

What a mess.  Torpedo 7 sales down 25%.  Warehouse down 5%.  No mention of Marketplace in all this.

To be fair - FY2022 Q1 (coming out of Covid) was an extraordinary quarter and always difficult to repeat. On the other hand - 6% down and another 6% eaten by inflation - means that they are in real sells something like 12 % down. Not easy to compensate for that with increasing margins.

Was yesterday in a Warehouse to buy some stationary - and the shelfs in the stationary section looked pretty deserted - sure, they did have some stuff I didn't needed (like some "arty" papers), but hardly anything of the stuff I was after (like e.g. C4 envelopes and waterresistent markers). Funny - the same thing happened to me last year in the Warehouse as well, maybe they want to send me a message?

"Warehouse - where everybody leaves empty handed"?

I guess they just need to find a way to make money with this new sales strategy ;

[BlackPeter]

Off course the rest of Red Shed sales are down.
Groceries taking up valuable higher margin space.

Good point - and I guess so do the shelves coming from the blue sheds which they squeezed into their red sheds.

[Basil]

I think they have a huge problem with Torpedo 7.  Anyone that wanted a new bike did so during the pandemic and now we have a cost of living crisis (instead of a flood of printed money) this goes from bad to worse.

Agree sales decline needs to be considered in light of inflation running at 5-6% so in real terms well down.
One only needs to look at how K Mart are rapidly expanding and making really serious money from sales that from memory are only about a third of WHS level to know there are deep systemic issues not only facing WHS from external sources such as increased competition, but from within the company as well.

I agree with BP that their stores look understocked in many areas.  I think WHS has a massive problem with their retail footprint being too big.  The Milford store closure thing the other day is just as likely them simply not wanting to pay current market rent rather than the dog and pony show they put on about how disappointed they were blah, blah, blah.

Analysts starting to doubt their strategy too and "unfriend" the stock.  I can see this being booted out of the NZX50 sometime in the foreseeable future, possibly in 2024, (probably survive the next assessment point on 2 December).

What the CEO of this woefully underperforming company is paid is a bloody disgrace. 
Disc: Pleased to be out and have some good coin in the tin from my time as a shareholder.  Not interested in investing in them again.
They're in systemic decline in my opinion.

[entrep]

3 step plan to Warehouse recovery:

1. Fire the CEO.
2. Sell Torpedo7.
3. Shutdown TheMarket.

[Mos]

3 step plan to Warehouse recovery:

1. Fire the CEO.
2. Sell Torpedo7.
3. Shutdown TheMarket.

Strong plan for the first three days.  What will you do on Thursday and Friday of your first week?

If I was a shareholder you would have my vote.

[winner (n)]

3 step plan to Warehouse recovery:

1. Fire the CEO.
2. Sell Torpedo7.
3. Shutdown TheMarket.

No 1 easy done

Nick is hugely expensive and utterly useless. We should replace him with AI and give that money to the REAL workers who run the companies and keep them profitable.

[Basil]

Day 4. I'd make everyone on more than $100K reapply for their job again and you'd probably find half them are twiddling their thumbs doing very little.

DAY 5. Get rid of all the dead wood on the board.

[Mos]

That is a solid first week.