Hawke's Bay Just Jeans stores doing fine

Local staff and shoppers are not likely to be affected by the closures of Just Jeans stores around New Zealand and Australia.
Transtasman retailer Premier Retail - formerly the Just Group - announced yesterday it will close down as many as 50 loss-making stores as the shop leases expire, and will make workers redundant to realign its organisation to "key strategic imperatives".
Hastings and Napier store managers told Hawke's Bay Today it was "nothing to do with us" and said the local stores were doing fine.
A statement said stores in Australia and New Zealand would be closed and described "onerous leases" as one of the high costs the company faced.
Premier owned brands such as Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans, Jacqui E, Peter Alexander, Dotti and Smiggle.
Recently appointed chief executive Mark McInnes led a strategic review of retail assets and opportunities.
Mr McInnes said Premier relied heavily on school holidays, but recent trading had been "challenging" due to slow trade during the school holiday period.
"We have not experienced the expected uplift from July school holidays across Australia and New Zealand that we experienced in April," Mr McInnes said. "In addition, margins have remained under pressure, as industry-wide discounting has increased," he said.
"We have moved swiftly to better align our cost base for full year 2012, as well as ensure our excess winter inventory has been priced to clear over the last two weeks of this month."