Woolworths Australia: A 1924 Name Dare, 10,000 Pokies and Masters

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Australia's Woolworths began in Sydney in 1924, when founders Percy Christmas, Stanley Chatterton, Cecil Scott Waine, George Creed and Ernest Williams set aside a proposed Wallworths Bazaar after Christmas dared Williams to use the Woolworths name, which was available in New South Wales and had no link to the American F.W. Woolworth chain. Its Stupendous Bargain Basement was the first variety store anywhere to use cash registers that printed customer receipts. The company survived the Depression and the military's takeover of its Sydney warehouses in World War II, opened its first purpose-built supermarket in 1960, built the discount stores that became Big W, bought Safeway in 1985 and floated in 1993 in what was then Australia's largest IPO.

Expansion took it into Dick Smith electronics, petrol stations and liquor through Dan Murphy's and BWS, and because Queensland required liquor sellers to be hoteliers, it bought hundreds of hotels and came to operate over 10,000 poker machines. The Masters hardware venture with Lowe's contributed to a $1.235 billion loss in the 2015 to 2016 financial year and was shut down, and the liquor, hotel and gaming businesses were spun off as Endeavour Group, with the last shares sold by 2024. In January 2024 the company stopped selling Australia Day merchandise, citing falling demand, and opposition leader Peter Dutton called for a boycott while Brisbane stores were vandalized.

• Woolworths admitted underpaying its own staff by millions of dollars over several years.
• It was fined a million dollars for emailing customers who had opted out of marketing.
• Modern slavery audits sent third-party inspectors to Vietnamese seafood plants and traced West African cocoa.
• The company reimbursed recruitment fees to Myanmar migrant workers in its Malaysian supply network.
• Its petrol stations went to EG Group, and it is now buying into digital health and pet care.