What would Solomon Lew’s retail empire, Premier Investments, be worth if its most lucrative assets were split up and spun out? That’s the question on the mind of shareholders ahead of the company’s results on Thursday.

And the answer is very different – depending on who is crunching the numbers. This week, Barrenjoey Capital Markets had its turn analysing what it would look like if Smiggle, the stationery brand, and Peter Alexander, were listed on the ASX as stand-alone businesses. All up – considering the rest of the portfolio, holdings in Breville, Myer and property assets – the sum of the parts at Premier was looking something like $4.2 billion.