‘Heist’ merchants or white knights? The private equity firm that owned David Jones

November 9, 2026 — 4:00am

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Dick Smith, 82, remembers going into David Jones as a small child to get new shoes. He remembers too being shocked when Anchorage Capital Partners bought the business in 2023 after what the entrepreneur views as its “heist” of his namesake electronics business about a decade before.

In 2012, an analysis from funds manager Forager suggested Anchorage had effectively bought Dick Smith Electronics for about $10 million in cash, ran down stock to make the chain look more profitable, and then listed it on the stock market at a $520 million valuation in 2013. It collapsed in 2016.

“When I heard they were involved in David Jones I thought, as many Australians will, will this be another equity heist?” Smith tells this masthead. “It’s amazing they went ahead and used Anchorage because of the history of it.”

This time though, Smith says, it looks like Anchorage has failed to execute its playbook. That playbook, in theory, is simple: Anchorage buys struggling businesses, strips out the bad bits, invests in the good bits, and sells them off. As Anchorage’s decision to put David Jones into administration this week shows, the reality is much harder.

Founded in 2007 by bankers including its executive chair Phil Cave, Anchorage runs lean. The core team........

© Brisbane Times