Co-op Bookshop, Australia's biggest co-op, went under owing suppliers $15M

On 25 November 2019, the company behind the Co-op bookshop — Australia's staple university bookstore — and Curious Planet, formerly Australian Geographic, entered voluntary administration. Chairman Joe Merhi said weak retail trading heading into Christmas and the collapse of over-the-counter textbook sales by over 40 per cent left the board 'no alternative'. PwC's Phil Carter, Andrew Scott and Daniel Walley took control of a business with 180-plus staff, over 300 suppliers and a self-reported 2 million active members.

The administrators immediately flagged one transaction: Jacaru Australia, a major supplier majority-owned by Co-op chief executive Thorsten Wichtendahl, had received more than $500,000 in advance for goods not yet supplied. Unlike other suppliers, Jacaru did not appear to have trouble getting paid — by early November it had received over $857,000 that year against $315,000 of delivered stock.

Investigating those payments was 'one of the critical jobs of the administrators', Carter said; the board declined to answer questions about the debts or Jacaru, calling them 'commercially confidential'. Suppliers said payment problems had begun after the Co-op bought Curious Planet — founded as Australian Geographic by Dick Smith in 1992 — from Myer Family Investments three years earlier.

The Take Back the Co-op campaign's Jeremy Nadel argued the retailer would only return to being the successful textbook retailer students loved 'when it returns to being governed by its members'.

Textbook sales — the core business — fell over 40 per cent in a year and the board had no plan besides administration.

The CEO's own company sat effectively at the front of the payment queue while other suppliers went unpaid.

The 2016 Curious Planet acquisition added retail exposure that suppliers blame for the payment spiral.

A member-owned co-operative had drifted so far from its members that students had to campaign for board representation.

A struggling retailer can survive weak sales, but not weak governance: when the CEO's own company is the only supplier still getting paid, the members' business has already stopped being theirs.

Administrators kept all Co-op Bookshop and Curious Planet stores trading 'business as usual' while seeking a going-concern sale, saying several buyers had already made contact in the first days.