No certainty on shop's future

Less than five per cent of the 100 underperforming Dick Smith stores earmarked for possible closure by chain owner Woolworths will be in New Zealand.

The firm would not directly say if the Whangarei operation would be affected.

Woolworths has announced it will sell the Dick Smith chain of electronic stores following restructuring.

Clare Buchanan, spokeswoman for Woolworths, said closures would be progressively announced over the next few months.

"We are not going to be announcing all the closures all at once. We can say we have earmarked 100 underperforming stores but whether they will be closed or not is a matter to be worked through," she said.

"We've been closing about 30 stores a year for the past three or four years so it's only a bit of an acceleration of that.

"It's going to be the stores that are performing the worst, but we're also going to look at it by location as well."

Analysts had predicted the decision to shut down many of the 386 stores because of poor sales. There are 71 Dick Smith stores in New Zealand, 19 of them in Auckland.

Chief executive Grant O'Brien said divesting the Dick Smith chain would allow Woolworths to invest more in serving its core business customers. There had already been a number of unsolicited approaches from potential buyers, he said.

The proposal has incensed the chain's founder Dick Smith, who fears Woolworths may sell the stores to overseas interests.