This is good news for MHJ. Kiwis love cheap.
Emm, as for my Tiffany purchases over the years. Not so good.
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This is good news for MHJ. Kiwis love cheap.
Emm, as for my Tiffany purchases over the years. Not so good.
Great news - I happily choose lab diamonds over mined every time, the sooner the artificial scarcity that the diamond industry has created over the last century evaporates, the better.
As for MHJ - consumers don’t have any idea what the wholesale price of gemstones are, so I’m hoping this leads to supporting margins.
this from DMX. Bit of a weird investment for them tbh.
More concerningly has been the continued erosion to the operational performance of Michael Hill. This now small position declined a further 33% in May on the back of a negative trading update. The company is suffering from weakening consumer demand, tighter consumer credit availability, the impact of crime on its NZ business& the associated additional security costs, contracting gross margins, and troubles with the integration of the acquired Bevilles business in Australia. This investment’s proving to be a painful reminder of the difficulties of retail in general, but also that the world changes, companies have a lifespan and go through phases of growth, maturity, and unfortunately, decline. We don’t need to make our money back the same way we lost it, but at current levels, we believe the shares are being priced for disaster. We’d previously reduced our position as the company started reporting negatively, and its price erosion has further reduced it to a relatively small holding now. We’re comfortable to give this one some time to see if they can successfully reduce costs and restore a basic level of profitability. Its 40+ year history should be worth something here, and we’re hopeful of at least a partial recovery to our remaining investment.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/michae...BTRDEQF6KOGME/
Michael Hill Jeweller to close Whakatāne store due to high retail crime
could be more of this to follow from other retailers in areas which have similar crime issues
It’s wild that New Zealand hasn’t been able to adapt to simple crime techniques that have been around for decades overseas. We lived in such a sheltered country, and all it took was some gangs to figure out how to do these simple acts and we have had several years of chaos with pitiful response from the police and political leaders.
Yes a particular cohort of society, primarily younger people not in work education or training have worked out that there is no effective response to crime. Police have been trained to be social workers first and law enforcement second. The judiciary has been particularly unhelpful to the police and public in general by tempering sentences with excessive focus on upbringing and excuses rather than a straight out crime/discouragement position, coupled with pressure from politicians to keep people from being locked up even briefly as a deterrent. No real consequences means more of the same.