Sell-off angers Dick Smith
- 31 January, 2012 13:41
- Comments 2
Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith fears the electronics chain he founded could be sold to foreign owners by retail giant Woolworths.
Woolworths on Tuesday announced it would carry out a major restructure of Dick Smith Electronics in the hope of finding a buyer for the business.
Smith said Woolworths' decision was a sign Australia was moving closer to the point when everything will be foreign owned.
The Buy Australian campaigner believed the local market was not big enough to provide sustained profits for companies in an increasingly globalised world.
"When you want endless growth only the biggest survive," Smith told AAP on Tuesday.
"Little Australia won't have any ownership at all."
Despite his opposition to the sale of Australian companies offshore, he said he did not see there would be any alternative.
"That's basically the only place they'll be able to sell (Dick Smith Electronics)," he said.
"I can't see how you can get growth in that industry.
"Everyone will just buy the products from overseas. You don't have to pay cash, GST.
"The labour costs overseas are so much cheaper I just can't see how you'll be able to get any growth at all.
"Presumably that's why they're selling it."
Smith said he believed Woolworths would struggle to find a buyer for the electronics business he founded in the late 1960s.
"I don't know how they'll sell the business," he said.
The Sydney Morning Herald website earlier reported Smith had pledged to "rubbish" the electronics chain if it was sold to a foreign buyer.
Smith said he would not go that far but added anyone buying it would know that Dick Smith is very likely to be critical.
Woolworths bought an initial 60 per cent stake in Dick Smith Electronics in 1980 from its founder.
It bought the remainder of the business two years later.
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Comments
Richard Ure
DSE has a fairly generous returns policy, but It does not look as if Dick is interested in buying DSE back.
Trevor C
If Dick Smith is so concerned that the company he founded would fall into foreign hands, why did he sell it? He should have realized that something like this would be possible when he sold out.
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