The boss of the Woolworths group yesterday said that spinning off music and entertainment distribution division EUK into a separate company was not currently an option, despite rumours that one of its shareholders, Iceland based Baugur, was pushing for that to happen.
Woolies CEO Trevor Bish-Jones said EUK just wasn't ready to be spun off at this time, telling investors: "Shareholders know you can't divest an asset like that. EUK doesn't work as standalone. There's a lot to do to get that to a standalone size, we need to build expertise". However, he added that if and when the time was right he would look into selling off the distribution business, saying "if it is the right thing in the future we will consider it".
Speculation as to the future of the still struggling retail chain continued again yesterday as the company released its latest financials, confirming an expected growth in losses. Despite still struggling amid increased competition from the supermarkets in key product lines like music, DVD, confectionary and kids clothes, Bish-Jones said that he was confident he could bring about a recovery at the retail firm, and without the carve up reportedly preferred by Baugur. The big plan at the moment is to introduce an Argos style catalogue department into Woolies' high street stores and, to that end, Bish-Jones confirmed his company had just printed some six million catalogues featuring some 5500 goods that would be available both in store and online.