Myer boss Olivia Wirth says retail crime ‘endemic’ as it posts $211m loss on Apparel Brands acquisition

Myer executive chair Olivia Wirth says retail crime is “endemic” and has escalated across Australia, with the chief becoming the latest to call out Victoria as the biggest problem State.

Echoing comments from other major retailers during the latest reporting season, Ms Wirth on Tuesday said there was “an alarming rate of anti-social behaviour towards our team” and pointed to a 79 per cent increase in incidents of threatening behaviour across its department stores in the 2025 financial year.

Nearly 60 per cent of these incidents involved verbal or physical abuse.

Anti-social behaviour rose 11 per cent at its stores across the Apparel Brands portfolio, which includes Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Portmans and Dotti, acquired from billionaire Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments in January.

Myer has invested $4 million on in-store security measures — including more CCTV, body-worn cameras, improved merchandise security tagging and rolling out glass cabinets for high-value products like cosmetics and fragrances — to reduce shrinking, or theft, by $9m in 2025.

“There is, quite frankly, an alarming rate of anti-social behaviour towards our staff,” Ms Wirth told investors on a call.

“The problem is endemic and has clearly escalated in the past 12 months, and particularly in Victoria.

“Not only is it happening more often, but the severity of incidents is growing.”

In WA, 65 per cent of all incidents involved threatening and aggressive behaviour, which ranges from verbal abuse to damage and stock theft, as well as physical abuse and injuries.

It’s understood most States and Territories are seeing threatening and aggressive behaviour in 60 to 70 per cent of incidents, with the highest being in Victoria at about 70 per cent.

The revelations come as Myer’s marriage to Mr Lew’s Apparel Brands, coupled with subdued consumer demand, weighed heavily on the expanded group’s full-year profit.

Myer reported a statutory net loss of $211.2m after booking a one-off impairment of $213.3m linked to the acquisition of Apparel Brands, as well as $34.5m related to other significant items, “reflecting a period of significant transition and merger integration”.

Myer pinned the hefty impairment costs of incorporating Apparel Brands to accounting measures that required the purchase consideration to be valued using its closing share price at the acquisition date.

Myer’s share price at the time of transaction completion was 98.5¢ compared with the 64.5¢ at the time of announcing the proposed transaction last June.

Investors took the news hard, with shares diving 25 per cent on Tuesday to 48¢, wiping nearly $280m off the stock’s value.

Excluding those one-off items, net profit was $36.8m, down 30 per cent from the previous year’s $52.6m.

Total sales growth was up just 0.5 per cent on a pro forma basis — adjusted for the Apparel Brands acquisition — to $3.67b.

For Myer’s department stores, sales increased 1.2 per cent to $3.3b. But growing sales at the Apparel Brands segment was proving a challenge.

In 2025, only Portmans posted an uplift in sales, up 1.3 per cent, while Just Jeans was down 0.3 per cent, Jay Jays was flat, and Jacqui E down 0.7 per cent. Dotti was the worst performer, with sales down 8.9 per cent.

Ms Wirth said 26 per cent of sales were now derived from Apparel Brands.

Myer said sales proved resilient but profitability was impacted by soft macroeconomic conditions, reflected in subdued consumer demand and increased promotional activity to shift inventory amid a continued challenging environment for Australian retailers.

But in positive signs for the group, sales in the first seven weeks of the new financial year were up 3.1 per cent. But it warned target initiatives would be needed to offset ongoing cost of doing business “headwinds”.

Ms Wirth said the 2025 financial year had been a “reset” year for the group to target long-term growth.

“Despite challenging macroeconomic conditions and tough retail markets in Australia and New Zealand, we achieved positive sales growth in our first period as a combined group,” she said.

“We are making significant progress in executing our strategy for the Myer Group, building a diversified omni-channel retail powerhouse to drive growth and deliver sustainable returns for shareholders.

“There is real momentum building across the business thanks to the energy, strong engagement, and focus of dedicated team members in implementing important changes while achieving high customer satisfaction.”

No final dividend was declared.