CHAIRMAN’S REPORT IT HAS BEEN A YEAR OF SIGNIFICANT LEADERSHIP CHANGE AT THE BOARD AND EXECUTIVE LEVEL It was a great honour to be appointed as his tenure, John and his team consistently We are also delighted to have appointed Chairman at the AGM in November 2017. grew revenues, differentiated the Nigel Chadwick as Chief Financial product offering, launched a successful Officer in January 2018. Nigel has spent In this role I will continue to strive for online business, improved EBITDA and over 20 years in senior finance roles at a Board that has the right mix of skills reduced debt. John and his team also Spotless, BHP and Telstra, and brings and experience, as demonstrated with refurbished more than 70 percent of the significant experience to the business. the Board appointments of Julie Ann property portfolio and implemented a Morrison in October 2017 and Lyndsey vision, values and culture program. With these appointments, Myer bolstered Cattermole AM in October 2018. its global retail and financial expertise, John understands fashion retailing, bringing best-in-class experience to our A STRENGTHENED EXECUTIVE particularly department stores. He is executive team. TEAM FOR THE FUTURE an excellent executive to lead Myer and I look forward to continuing to FY2018 RESULTS As a fellow shareholder, I share your disappointment with the Company’s work with him to unlock the Company’s Total sales declined by 3.2% to performance during FY2018. significant potential. $3,100.6 million, and were down 2.7% John has been given a full on a comparable stores basis. Pleasingly, As such, the Board made the decisive total online sales reached $239.4 million move to make significant leadership mandate by the Board to (including $30.8 million via in-store iPads, changes. deliver an improvement in sass & bide and MDL online sales and The During the year we successfully recruited the financial performance Myer Market). experienced executives in the critical Operating gross profit (OGP) declined roles of Chief Executive Officer and of the Company. by 2.9% to $1,184.4 million, and OGP Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer margin increased to 38.2%. Cost of doing and Chief Merchandise Officer. Myer also appointed Allan Winstanley as Chief Merchandise Officer to oversee business (CODB) increased by 1.5% to In June this year, John King was appointed Merchandise Buying and Planning. Allan’s $1,035.0 million. Excluding MDL, CODB as Myer’s new Chief Executive Officer career spans a number of well-known declined by 1.1%. and Managing Director. Through an department store retailers including Implementation costs and individually international search, we sought a House of Fraser in the UK, and De significant items totalled $541.2 million retailer with extensive experience Bijenkorf, part of the Selfridges Group. (pre-tax) of which $538.2 million (pre- and, particularly, department store tax) were recorded as part of the first experience, who understood our product Having previously worked together on the successful turnaround of House of Fraser, half results. This included a non-cash mix and the complexity of our operations. impairment charge relating to the Myer John led the successful transformation John and Allan represent a formidable goodwill and brand name of $515.3 million at UK department store House of Fraser team, committed to rejuvenating the Myer brand and restoring shareholder (pre-tax) and other asset impairments from 2006 until 2015. Over the course of of $9.2 million (pre-tax). confidence and value. 2 Myer Annual Report 2018