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

Historic Auckland department store Smith & Caughey’s is living to fight another day.

The 144 year old business announced in May it would close next year - but today revealed measures to let it stay open.

It will downsize physical trading to the ground floor of its Queen Street store, cut about 100 staff and close the Newmarket branch, and ramp up online operations.

Chair Tony Caughey says the reality is fewer people shop in the city and they must adapt.

"There'll be different ways of doing things - and I think it will evolve. We won't see the old days of how it was, but we'll see a new, different sort of Queen Street."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather d for see Ellen Smith and Coe's How Good
is This? One of New Zealand's oldest department stores has
been partially saved. The company has decided to keep a
downsized Queen Street store and then operate online rather than
shutting down completely. Now what this means is about half
the staff will keep their jobs, but the other one
hundred will face redundancy by the end of the year.
Tony Coe is Smith and Coey's chairman. Hey, Tony, Hi,

(00:20):
Heather Tony. Now, I'm personally thrilled to see an institution,
and this particularly this institution saved. But are you sure
that there is a future for department stores in this
country in the future.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, we've looked very hard at this, and we've looked
at our position on us. We have to face reality
that fewer people are going into the city to shop
and we need to adapt accordingly, and we've sort of
been round around and come up with us and we're
pleased that we've been able to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay, so why are you closing the new Market store?
New Market is a place that's bustling, But then you're
keeping open the Queen Street store when Queen Street is
just awful.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, well, we've looked at that. Our Queen Street new
market sales had gone down a lot, and we just
felt that we needed to have the one store on
a limited operation and that was what was going to
work when we ran all the numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Do you foresee Queen Street at some stage going back
to its former glory.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
I don't think it'll go back to its former glory.
I think it'll change. So it's going to be redeveloped
in a whole lot of ways. When the train station opens,
that's going to pour a lot of people out of there.
We've got the Symphony Center going up across the road
from US, new hotels going into Queen Street. There'll be
different ways of doing things and I think it will evolve.
We won't see the old days like it was, but

(01:40):
we'll see a new, different sort of Queen Street.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
When do you see the economy turning around, particularly for retail.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, one hopes that when interstrates start to come off,
that there'll be more consumer confidence around because it's been
pretty rough, I can tell you, and you know I
think it will get better. That it's not going to
be overnight.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
When are you picking the ocr cup you're going for
October brains here.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I'll be guided by the experts. I used to sit
on the Monitary Policy Committee, so.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I have a little understanding of how did you Tony
walk go on, then tell us what you think. You're
basically an expert.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, no, I'll leave it to the experts.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Jeez, hate, what do you want it? Do you want
to weigh in on where Adrian was actually a good
governor or not?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, I don't want to weigh in on that.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, listen, tell me what is it that's changed. I mean,
this must have been an option that you considered when
you first announced that you were going to shut the
place down. What changed?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, well, we did look at it. We were looking
at a range of things. I think we just looked
a bit harder with a fresh look, to see if
we could make it work. We already focused very hard
on things, and we were able to massage the numbers
in a way that we felt confident that this would happen.
We could make this work.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Oh brilliant. Well, listen, best of luck with it. I
really hope it succeeds. That's Tony Coe, the chairman of
Smith and Coe's. For more from Hither duplessy Allen Drive.
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