Spin off and conquer: Solly Lew’s global plan for Smiggle and Peter Alexander

It feels like Solomon Lew is playing a game of international retail chess as his strategy to move the brand pieces becomes clearer.

The move to spin off pyjama group Peter Alexander and kid-stationery chain Smiggle into separately listed companies is the enabler for international hyper-expansion.

Lew’s end game appears to go beyond just growing these Australian businesses internationally. It is a plan to establish each as a global brand.

Solomon Lew believes Smiggle and Peter Alexander have greater value as separate entities.Credit: Eamon Gallagher

He mentions the extraordinary colonising success of brands such as Zara and Tommy Hilfiger, and then explains that the UK has been scoped and readied for Peter Alexander’s entry, while announcing plans to have 100 Smiggle stores in Indonesia in the coming years.

Liberated from Lew’s mothership company, Premier Investments, Peter Alexander and Smiggle can expedite their growth plans and raise their own funds to do it.

The theory goes that when separated, these businesses will attract higher values than they currently do within the Premier brand conglomerate.

Lew’s end game appears to go beyond just growing these Australian businesses internationally. It is a plan to establish each as global brands.

We saw some of this re-rating on Tuesday when Premier’s share price immediately jumped 9 per cent on the news of the brand demerger. Some of the enthusiasm can also be attributed to Premier’s earnings reported alongside the spin-off plans exceeding market expectations.

A notable absence in the geographic plans for Smiggle and Peter Alexander is America, but Lew certainly won’t rule it out. That is likely part of the next leg of global growth.

At this point, Premier is saying nothing about the plans for its legacy apparel brands like Just Jeans, Portmans and Dotti, whose sales have been hit by the constrained consumer spending environment.

They will presumably chug along and maximise profit by adopting Lew’s well-honed retail formula – that includes not overpaying for leases, having logistical superiority and keeping inventory to a minimum to avoid heavy discounting at sales periods.

As Lew so often says – he doesn’t like selling a dollar for 80¢.

Would you like some Smiggle shares with this? Credit: Louie Douvis

The chess piece that doesn’t fit neatly on the Lew strategy board is Premier’s 29 per cent stake in Myer. It is noteworthy that Premier didn’t exercise its right to buy an additional 3 per cent of Myer last month. This suggests Lew believes he has already reached de facto control of the department store group, which he says is still seriously under-earning.

A recent note from Citi correctly predicted that Premier’s strategic review would result in the demergers of Peter Alexander and Smiggle. It also explored the potential benefits of a merger between Premier and Myer.

It forecast this scenario would result in a potential sales and margin uplift as Premier replaces underperforming products in Myer with its higher-margin product range. In total, Citi estimated there would be about $25 million in synergies up for grabs.

No doubt Lew has a plan for Myer, but he is remaining tight-lipped.

With former Qantas executive Olivia Wirth, whom Lew describes as an excellent executive, soon to be ensconced as Myer’s executive chairwoman, the stage is set for a more collaborative relationship with Premier.

And Lew is nothing if not patient. He has sat happily with a large stake in Breville for many years - that said, this company operates like a well-oiled machine.

Now that Myer has recovered from the critical financial position it was in some years back, Lew can afford to tread water on this investment.

There will be plenty to keep Premier occupied over the coming 12 months in preparing Peter Alexander and Smiggle for separation.

The half-year profit to January 2024, which Premier released on Tuesday, demonstrates that Peter Alexander, in particular, managed to eschew the cost-of-living crisis and boost sales of its upmarket sleepwear by 6.7 per cent (and 93 per cent over four years), while Smiggle’s sales fell 3.6 per cent.

But Lew is adamant that the retail environment remains tough in Australia, a situation he reckons is to be blamed on the federal government.

He says he read a recent report that 9 million Australians have less than $1000 in their bank account, and more than 5 million have no savings at all.

That makes for terrifying reading for any owner of a discretionary retail business.

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