Hills safe from Masters impact

HILLS has clarified its manufacturing and marketing deal with Woolworths for its heritage products, including the famous Hills Hoist, is safe from any Masters impact.

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HILLS has clarified its manufacturing and marketing deal with Woolworths for its heritage products, including the famous Hills Hoist, is safe from any Masters impact.

“The recent announcement by Woolworths that it will pursue an orderly prospective sale or wind-up of its Masters and Home Timber & Hardware businesses will not impact the obligations of Woolworths under our agreement,” Hills said in a statement issued this morning.

Woolworths announced its decision to pull out of the failed Masters business this week, including not opening its under-construction stores at Parafield and Noarlunga.

Hills’ deal with Woolworths, signed in December 2014 for a minimum of seven years, marked the end of the manufacturing line for 240 Hills products, including the clotheslines, laundry and gardening products that made it famous.

Retailer Woolworths has since taken over their manufacturing, marketing and sales in exchange for a royalty stream to Hills, which still owns the brands and the intellectual property.

It completed the transformation of Hills to a hi-tech electronics, communications and healthcare product developer under former chief executive Ted Pretty, who quit in May last year.

At the annual meeting in November last year, chairman Jennifer Hill-Ling apologised to shareholders and assured them she sympathised and shared the pain.

The company reported a statutory net loss of $86 million for 2014-15 compared to a profit of $25 million the year before.

The loss was driven by previously announced impairments but the underlying net profit of $11 million was also down – by 60 per cent.

Hills shares were trading up four per cent on the update at 23.5c at 10.30 AEST.