Creditors to gather to hear Dick Smith news

The meeting will decide whether or not a creditors' committee should be appointed and whether or not the administrators should be replaced.

The administrators appointed to embattled electronics retailer Dick Smith will host a creditors meeting in Auckland.

A lending syndicate led by HSBC and National Australia Bank appointed receivers Ferrier Hodgson to the struggling electronics seller on Tuesday.

The receivership comes after the retailer abandoned its profit forecast last month amid a sales slump that left the firm with high levels of excess stock, which had to be heavily discounted in the lead-up to Christmas.

Prices were slashed by up to 80 per cent in the fire sale, but it failed to have the desired effect.

Dick Smith - which operates 393 stores, 62 of them in New Zealand, and has 3300 employees - has itself appointed McGrathNicol as voluntary administrator.

The administrators have today said that they will host a creditors' meeting at the Pullman hotel on January 15 at 10 a.m. That meeting will decide whether or not a creditors' committee should be appointed and whether or not the administrators should be replaced.