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Premier Retail CEO Mark McInnes has voluntarily decided to work from home without pay until April 22.

His entire Just Group executive team, who manage brands such as Just Jeans and Portmans, have been stood down and agreed to work from home when required with either no pay or reduced leave entitlements.

Similarly, Premier non-executive directors have voluntarily decided to not receive any remuneration during this period.

The moves come as parent company Premier Retail prepares a total shut down stores, affecting 9000 employees.

Premier will temporarily close all retail stores in Australia from 6 pm (local time) today, 26 March 2020, until 9 am (local time) Wednesday 22 April 2020.

This follows similar decisions the business has been forced to take in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Republic of Ireland.

This means all employees in Australia are to be stood down, except for a small number of employees required to perform limited essential work.

"This means our team members will not attend work and will not be paid," the company said in a statement. 

"We have put in place special arrangements for employees to access accrued annual and long service leave entitlements to reduce the impact over this time."

Globally these closures will impact over 9,000 employees.

In Australia and New Zealand close to 70% of stores are already in holdover or with leases expiring in 2020 providing the Group with maximum flexibility.

These extraordinary circumstances mean Premier intends not to pay any rent globally for the duration of the shutdown.

Premier will provide further updates when new information becomes available but no later than April 21.

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