Braybrook’s Masters store is expected to be turned into a home improvement centre after Woolworths confirmed it will close its entire range of Masters stores this year.
The company last week announced it will close all 61 Masters stores by December 11. It had flagged its exit in January following a disastrous foray into hardware trading.
Braybrook became the home of Australia’s first Masters store in 2011.
A Woolworths spokesman was unable to confirm how many Braybrook store staff would be redeployed or made redundant.
Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci said Woolworths would “work hard” to find Masters’ 7700 employees jobs in the group, or would pay full redundancies.
“Our top priority remains to do the right thing by our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders,” he said. “We will provide a transparent timetable to all our stakeholders during the exit process.”
Woolworths and its joint venture partner, US hardware giant Lowe’s, have invested almost $3.5 billion in the failed home hardware experiment since 2009.
Home Consortium (Arrium Group, Spotlight Group and Chemist Warehouse) will buy 61 Masters stores and 21 development sites.
A fire sale of all Masters’ stock, estimated to be valued at more than $500 million, begins this week and will run over coming months.
The company has said it will honour all customer gift cards, product warranties, returns, lay-bys and contracted home improvement projects.
