Nick Abboud was an up-and-coming senior executive at Myer, earning just over $627,000 a year, before he got his big break at Dick Smith.

Private equity firm Anchorage Capital hired Abboud in 2012 to run the electronics retailer it had acquired from Woolworths for $94 million. He was rewarded handsomely for the work he did over the following 14 months transforming the business.