EXCLUSIVE: Winnings Appliances Admit Liabilities Exceed Assets Days After Sackings Revealed

Winning Appliances, who recently laid off over 100 staff according to insiders, have admitted that the recently restructured Group’s, liabilities exceed their current assets.

John Winning Junior, who appears to be more at home seeking publicity for his playboy lifestyle, has failed to explain why the business laid off a large part of their workforce, or whether family issues forced the restructuring of the business.

ChannelNews inderstands that Wesfarmers and another major retailer have looked at the concept of buying Winnings but have walked away after investigating the structure of the family run business.

John Winning Junior

Filings with the Australian Companies and Security Commission also reveal that, as of July 2022, Winning Appliances entered into an agreement with a shareholder to buy back 134,098 shares for $23.9M. The shares were sold at $178.75 per share.
The transaction was part funded by the Commonwealth Bank, interest payments on the borrowings have not been declared.

Prior to this transaction the business acquired 100 per cent interest in lighting Company Spence & Lyda Pty Ltd for $3.27M, of which $2.87M was paid in “Upfront cash”.

In their latest financials filed last month, Winning delivered a profit after tax of $10.42 million. Revenues came in at $886M, up from $826M in the prior year.

The Company claimed that liabilities at the Company exceeded their current assets by $19.3M as a result of customer deposits not being fulfilled.

The Company has not said whether shipping delays impacted their ability to deliver goods for customers.

From 1st July 2020 to 7th of December 2020 Winnings Online Pty Ltd, which was 60% owned by Winning Appliances, was restructured in what appears to be a tax minimisation arrangement.

Documents lodged with ASIC claim that Winning entities have entered into a new tax funding arrangement that will see tax risk spread across the Group’s entities. What’s not known is whether this structure will be used to mask losses incurred in other Group entities that don’t report to ASIC.

Employee benefit obligations totaled $9.86M.

Filings also revealed that the $10.4 million profit was attributable to the “Owners of Winnings Appliances”.

The accounts also reveal that Winning Appliances “Commenced a redundancy program” in 2021, with their latest sacking being additional to the 2021 sackings.

A redundancy provision of $220,589 relating to the 2021 sackings is still listed in the Company’s accounts. The Company has also declared a “Contingent Provision of $478.000 relating to the acquisition of furniture and lighting Company Spence & Lyda.

The controlling Winning Appliances entity is Yandoo Holdings Pty Ltd, which owns 60.4 per cent of the Group.

Among the assets of the Group are Ora Restaurant, online retailer Big Brown Box, Appliances online, Winnings Air and an entity called ‘High Risk Enterprises Pty Ltd’.

Another entity is Home Clearance.

During the past few years several senior executives have come and gone from the John Winning-run business.

About Post Author

David Richards

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media company and prior to that the third largest PR company that became the foundation company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.