Grinch drops by House of Brands via Country Road

November is usually a time for listed retailers to whet the appetites of shareholders with forecasts of ringing tills and cha-chings! over Christmas.

Instead, the events of the past fortnight seem to have  bypassed sales in favour of scandals. And boy haven’t we had a string of those in the boardroom recently.

Whether it be the recent case surrounding disgraced former David Jones CEO Mark McInnes or – less recently but no less shockingly – the $16 million fraud conducted by Specialty Fashion Group former head of property Simon Feldman.

So which grinch has choked the reindeers before lift off this year?

There is no grinch per se. Just a series of events one does not normally expect to occur in November. I like to think of this month as a quiet, introspective time for retailers to “get their house in order” in anticipation of some seriously cashed up Christmas guests.

The first is the timely resignation of two long-serving David Jones executives, the iconic group general manager of fashion and beauty Colette Garnsey and marketing gun Damian Eales.

Timely because their resignations (and replacements) were officially announced on November 3, just weeks after that damaging sexual harassment case involving McInnes was settled out of court.

For public company Country Road, the legal dramas have only just begun.

Culled after a mere nine weeks in the job, former chief executive John Cheston has filed a $6.5 million Federal Court claim against the company with some rather nasty allegations in his arsenal.

Cheston claims Country Road does not conduct itself in accordance with corporate law nor have the financial resources it purports to have. The value of his claim coincides with the amount he would have received had he remained employed until his contract expired in January 2013. Country Road has vigorously denied his allegations.

These boardroom bombshells were covered as they broke by www.ragtrader.com.au.
Meanwhile, in this issue of the magazine, you can expect some serious print-only exclusives (we never double dip) with Zara’s expansion plans in particular set to shake up the market.

If November is the calm before the storm, it looks as though we’re set for quite an eventful Christmas.