Robinsons, Singapore's 162-year-old department store, liquidated with two stores left

Robinsons had sold goods in Singapore since 1858 — 162 years — when it told staff on October 30, 2020 that its last two stores, at The Heeren and Raffles City, would close and the company would be liquidated. "The overarching business model of department stores is outdated," the retailer said in its statement, blaming weak demand, e-commerce and rent costs that Covid-19 made worse.

Owner Al-Futtaim Group had paid $600 million for the chain in 2008. Robinsons then lost money for at least six years as revenue slid from $257.3 million in 2014 to $153.8 million in 2018, a $54.4 million loss that year. Its answer was shrinkage: 10-plus store closures announced in 2016, the last John Little outlet shut that December, an e-commerce site launched in 2016 that was dead by 2020, and the Jem store closed in the third quarter of 2020.

The liquidation took Malaysia's two Robinsons stores down with it. KordaMentha was appointed provisional liquidator; 175 staff were told they would be paid ahead of the usual insolvency process; OCBC cancelled the 18-year-old co-branded credit card; and shoppers holding vouchers found them spendable only at double their face value.

The owner kept a department-store format running for 12 years after paying $600M, even as e-commerce stripped away shoppers and six straight years of losses followed.

Shrinkage was treated as the fix: closures, format tweaks and a late e-commerce site cut costs but never answered why customers stopped coming.

By October 2020 the stores' own statement conceded their inability to continue operations due to weak demand, with liquidation the only remaining option.

A heritage department-store brand bought at the top cannot out-spend a format shift: six loss years and a $600M price tag still ended in liquidation.

Provisional liquidators from KordaMentha took control to maximise returns to creditors, including employees, who were assured payments under the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act well ahead of the usual timeline. Datuk Robert Teo Keng Tuan of RSM Malaysia was appointed interim liquidator for the Malaysian stores. Al-Futtaim's other franchises, including Marks & Spencer and Zara, were unaffected.