Retail

Billionaire businessman Solomon Lew's retail investment arm, which includes Smiggle and Peter Alexander, has booked a strong jump in profit thanks to solid sales growth and new store openings.

Department store chain Myer has tightened its full-year profit forecast on the back of strong sales growth.

Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder, finance director Terry Bowen and non-executive director James Graham have sold a combined $12.1 million worth of shares, predominantly for tax purposes.

Western Australian retail spending rose 0.2 per cent month on month in January, to $2.8 billion, slightly below the national average of 0.3 per cent.

Ratings agency Moody's has cut supermarket giant Woolworths' credit rating by one notch.

Australia's largest payday lender, Perth-based Cash Converters International, has returned to the black and begun scaling back its troubled business in Britain.

Woolworths has appointed a new boss to revive the retail giant, hammered by weak earnings, stiff competition and its failed hardware chain Masters.

Shares in Wesfarmers have slumped after losses from the group's coal mines partly offset Coles' and Bunnings' strong gains.

Automotive Holdings Group has posted a solid half-year result with profit and revenue up, driven mostly by the company’s retail business but offset by its logistics divisions.

Automotive Holdings Group has won regulatory approval for the sale of its Covs Parts business after agreeing to retain four regional stores, and has also expanded its east coast operations through another acquisition in Melbourne.

Troubled streaming service Quickflix is trying to restructure shares in the company held by rival Stan and, it says, are blocking new investment.

Cash Converters International has secured a new $100 million loan with Fortress Investment Group to support the lender and second hand good retailer's future growth.

JB Hi-Fi expects continual expansion of its home appliance business to cushion it from a competitive electronics market.

The receiver restructuring Dick Smith with a view to selling the troubled electrical retailer says the company has been underpaying workers for as long as six years.

Western Australia started 2016 on the wrong foot with the number of new cars sold in the state already tailing the national average in January.

Global retailers provided a rare bright spot in an otherwise subdued sector over Christmas, and the dominance of the online model is set to grow.

The contrasting fortunes of the Bunnings and Masters hardware businesses reflect the broader performance of their relative corporate owners.

Retail giant Woolworths has been ordered to pay more than $11 million to a Victorian property developer for breaking a contract for the construction of a Masters hardware store.

Dick Smith will close every one of its concessions in David Jones department stores next week as the receivers seek a buyer for the ailing electrical retailer.

Wesfarmers has announced plans to spend over $1 billion in the UK market after sealing a deal to buy the Homebase home improvement chain for $705 million and rebrand it as Bunnings.

Woolworths is abandoning its multi-billion dollar foray into the Australian home improvement market following years of losses, putting 7,000 jobs at risk.

Woolworths is understood to have finalised a deal to open a new supermarket in the southern suburb of Coolbellup, which will underpin a $65 million apartment development at the former Coolbellup Hotel site.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve asked the Wesfarmers leadership when they would look at an international expansion.

Dick Smith's fate may not be decided for another six months, with administrators set to apply for more time to investigate the downfall of the electrical retailer.

Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers is poised to make its first major move outside Australasia, offering $A700 million to acquire the Homebase home improvement chain in the UK and revealing plans to develop a new Bunnings-branded business in that market.

Dick Smith chief executive Nick Abboud has quit the troubled electronics retailer, which has gone into into receivership with debts of about $390 million.

Fears for China's growth prospects and turbulence on global markets are weighing on consumers.

More than 30 parties have shown interest in the assets of the collapsed Dick Smith retail business in Australia and New Zealand.

Laura Ashley faces an uncertain future in Australia after the women's clothing and homewares retailer, famed for its pastels and prints, called in the administrators.

The consumer watchdog is speaking with the receivers at Dick Smith to find out how the electronics retailer's collapse will affect customers.

The Dick Smith chain of technology and electrical goods shops is probably a poor example of the wider problems confronting retailing but its collapse this week is a reminder that the shake-out which has rattled the retail world over the past few years is far from over.

Car dealers in Western Australia will be hoping for a pickup this year, after the release of data showing a 7.9 per cent fall in new car sales in 2015 in WA, while the rest of the nation reported its best year on record.