Allphones Australia closing 18 stores as it undergoes administration

Allphones closed its 18 stores on Monday after it has gone into administration. The decision took place after its new owner, Canadian company Glentel, has failed to improve the company's status after a turnaround project. There are 66 stores that will continue to operate while PBB looks for someone who will take over the rest of the store network.

"Despite financial support from the shareholder and significant efforts to deliver a successful turnaround, the shareholders are unable to continue funding the group’s losses. The Board of each entity (there are nine in total) has been left with no option other than to place each entity in the Allphones Group into Voluntary Administration this morning," PPB Advisory said in a statement. Retaining an agreement to resell Vodafone services to help Allphones recover has failed that the company now entered into administration.

There were 69 employees affected by the store closure. Phil Carter of PBB Advisory said that they were undertaking an urgent review of Allphones. They aim to ensure that the employees impacted were fully supported. However, the future of its employees was still uncertain.

The company aimed to stabilise the current operations and store network. Carter said that their immediate priority was to work with the company's key stakeholders, franchisees, licensees and staff to keep the store's trading on a business as usual basis. Allphones group was acquired in May 2016 and it has employed 440 people. It owns 25 stores while seven were operated by franchisees. Allphones' other stores were licensed to other parties.

In 2013, the company has lost its contract to run 45 Virgin Mobile-branded stores in the country. It has suffered $25 million impairment due to the lost of contract. In the same year, Allphones also ceased selling all Optus consumer products including mobile, broadband products and fixed telephony. Optus decided to end the contract to overhaul its retail strategy in improving customer relation. During this period, Allphones strengthen its partnership with Vodafone and expanded into the Philippines.

"We're contracted to do up to 250 Allphones stores in the Philippines for [a telco]," CEO Shaun Colligan told ZDNet in 2013 . "And the crux of that was this digital solution. You're taking a quantum leap for those guys where retail has gone from being a very transactional prepaid environment and we're helping to move them to a post-paid contractual environment." The company currently has more than 60 outlets in the Philippines.

Its naming rights sponsorhip of Sydney Olympic Park's Superdome, now Qudos Bank Arena, has ended in 2016. The company's first shopfront opened in 1989 in South Australia.