It’s minutes to midnight: David Jones has run out of survival options

November 4, 2026 — 3:29pm

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If you still have a David Jones gift card, now might be a good time to cash it in before the retailer’s board meets this evening and turns your voucher into the equivalent of a losing Melbourne Cup ticket.

The board meeting is expected to perform last rites on what is left of the failing 188-year-old department store operator and put the company into voluntary administration.

David Jones has run out of options and will need the protection of corporate undertakers to keep landlords and lenders at bay. But it won’t last long.

Its major lender, Hilco Capital, will then appoint its own receiver to restructure and sell the business, and try to recoup its money.

That will involve drastic surgery to reduce the storied department store chain to a more modest store footprint – with lower rents – so that it just might remain viable.

No one needs reminding how tough a job this will be. And not just based on the Reserve Bank’s latest interest rate rise this........

© The Sydney Morning Herald