Robinsons Singapore says goodbye after 162 years

Singapore

AFTER more than a century in business, Robinsons Singapore will close down for good amid losses in recent years. But its last two stores at The Heeren and Raffles City Shopping Centre may remain open in the "coming weeks" for final sales.

Some 175 employees of the department store operator will be affected by the winding up.

Robinsons' senior general manager, Danny Lim, said in a statement on Friday: "We regret this outcome today. Despite recent challenges in the industry, the Robinsons team continued to pursue the success of the brand. However, the changing consumer landscape makes it difficult for us to succeed over the long term and the Covid-19 pandemic has further exacerbated our challenges."

He added that it has been "an honour" for Robinsons to serve the Singapore market and that he was "grateful for the dedication of (the) team, and for the support shown by (its) customers over the years".

Robinsons employees were informed by management and the provisional liquidators of the news on Friday. The company said that employees will be paid in line with the next payment cycle, "well in advance of the usual liquidation process timing which would usually take months".

The Singapore Manual & Mercantile Workers' Union told The Business Times that it was informed of the closure beforehand by Robinsons and is working with the liquidators to provide "necessary assistance" to the workers.

The union noted that in the event of retrenchment in a unionised company, it will ensure that the company carries it out in line with the existing tripartite advisory on managing excess manpower and responsible retrenchment.

For now, the union is working with NTUC's e2i to provide Robinsons' workers with training and job matching support. It is also in touch with other unionised companies to place affected workers into other jobs.

Robinsons' exit puts an end to at least six years of losses that it has chalked up against declining revenues.

Financial records show that the company made a loss after tax from continuing operations of S$26.5 million in 2014. It sank further into the red up until 2018, when it recorded losses of S$54.4 million. The exception to this was in 2015, when it narrowed its losses to S$17.4 million.

Meanwhile, Robinsons' topline shrunk. It generated S$153.8 million in revenue in 2018, down from the S$257.3 million it made in 2014.

When Robinsons closed its 85,000 sq ft outlet at Jem shopping mall in May, it had told BT that competition from the rapid increase in suburban malls had made having multiple, large-scale department stores in Singapore unsustainable "well before" the pandemic surfaced.

Even so, "the challenges we are facing with the ongoing Covid-19 situation are extremely difficult and the uncertainty is very unsettling for all", it had added.

Questions now arise over the fate of Marks & Spencer (M&S) in Singapore, with whom Robinsons shares a parent in the Al-Futtaim Group.

A M&S representative confirmed to BT that it has no intention of closing its "thriving business". Yet, the Singapore franchise appears barely profitable of late, having made a profit after tax of S$101,613 in 2018, down from S$2.9 million a year ago.

With Robinsons ending its operations in Singapore, the OCBC Robinsons Credit Card will also be cancelled after 18 years, on April 15 next year.

It gives cardholders rebates for shopping at Robinsons and M&S stores, and earns Robinsons dollars for spending at all other merchants.

In Malaysia, Robinsons' stores at Shoppes at Four Seasons Place and The Gardens Mall will undergo a similar liquidation process concurrently.

Separately, The Straits Times reported Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said on Friday that Robinsons' closure "does signal very strongly that our industries are going to continue to have to transform".

Speaking at the sidelines of a visit to a local company, she added: "The landscape of consumers, the landscape of businesses are not going to stay static. If nothing else, Covid-19 has accelerated all of the transformation."

READ MORE: With Robinsons closing, what lies ahead for its peers?