Australian retail giant goes on 718 mln USD corporate restructure

Australian retail chain Woolworths Ltd. has announced a massive corporate restructure in its Australian business worth just shy of one billion Australian dollars with jobs losses and store closures set to take place.

On Monday, the struggling retail giant announced that 500 jobs will go in the back office and supply roles as part of an overall corporate restructure of its business worth 959 million Australian dollars (718.2 million U.S. dollars).

It also announced that 30 of its existing stores will be closed by the end of the current financial year. There are 17 supermarkets in Australia, six in New Zealand, four Australian metro stores and three hotels on the chopping block.

Woolworths Ltd chief executive officer Brad Banducci said the operating model review and turnaround measures implemented since he was appointed to head the Woolworths group in February this year were showing real momentum.

"While we have had to make some tough decisions and this has ramifications for many of our team, we are confident we are putting in place solid foundations for the future and early results give us confidence we are on the right track," Banducci said in a statement.

Banducci expects earnings before interest and tax from continuing operations, before significant items, would be between 2.55 Australian billion dollars and 2.57 Australian billion dollars in 2016.

News of Woolworths corporate restructure was positively received by investors with its stocks seeing a rise of 8.24 percent to 24.30 Australian dollars on Monday. Endit