Jeweller - December 2020

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY | Chains through the decade
IN SUMM A RY
History
Pandora
Meanwhile, 13 Angus & Coote stores got the chop. Myles
Norman, general manager JPL, confirmed that some
of the Angus & Coote and Goldmark ‘closures’ were stores
that were converted to, and re-branded as, Prouds.
Decline of Zamels
However, the story is not as positive when it comes to The
Jewellery Group, which owns Zamels and Mazzuchelli’s.
In 2010 Zamels was Australia’s third-largest jewellery chain
with 100 retail stores; however, by June 2020, a whopping
63 Zamels stores had closed. By December, four more had
closed. During the same period The Jewellery Group also
closed two single store ‘brands’, Vivien’s and Budgens.
On a brighter note, Mazzucchelli’s had increased from 25
stores in 2010 to 28 in December 2020, most of which are new
locations, with one Zamels store (Chadstone, in Melbourne)
being converted to Mazzucchelli’s. As a result, The Jewellery
In 2003 we asked:
are there too many
jewellery stores in
the major shopping
centre?
After extensive
research we found:
71
The number of
major shopping
centres in capital
cities
Group is now less than half the size it was in 2010, operating
61 stores, down from 127 (see chart 3).
Many of the problems facing Zamels can be traced to the
2007 sale of the 53-year-old family business to Quadrant
Private Equity. At the time, speculation valued the deal at
between $75 million and $100 million.
CHART 3: THE JEWELLERY GROUP
Stores
Zamels
TABLE 4: FINE & FASHION CHAINS BY OWNERSHIP
Chain Owner/Group Stores
Prouds
264
Angus & Coote James Pascoe
120
Group
Total
458
12,561
The number of
specialty stores
in the 71 centres
2003 2007 2010 2017 2020
Mazzuchelli's
Goldmark 74
Michael Hill Michael Hill 154 154
Lovisa BB Retail Capital 152 152
Pandora Pandora 124 124
Zamels
33
The Jewellery Group
Mazzucchelli's 28
Shiels
40
Transworld Enterprises
Graham's 6
Wallace Bishop
38
Wallace Bishop
Hardy Brothers 5
Colette Colette 35 35
Bevilles Bevilles 24 24
Salera’s Salera’s 18 18
Hoskings Hoskings 16 16
Gregory Gregory 15 15
Silvershop Silvershop 7 7
Regency Regency 6 6
Anthonys Anthonys 5 5
61
46
43
TOTAL 1164 1164
The above chart shows the updated chain store count as at December
2020. Note that a ‘chain’ is defined as 5 or more stores.
667
The number of
jewellery and
watch stores
5.3%
Jewellery stores
as a percentage
of all stores
16%
The percentage
of overall retail
sales at shopping
centres
Stores
2007 2010 2020
With a total of 61 stores, The Jewellery Group is half the size it was in 2010.
Since July 2020, Zamels closed four stores and Mazzhuchelli’s closed two.
However, when the takeover was completed, industry sources
suggested the final sale was closer to $48 million – a figure
that many believed was still excessive.
Five years later, that assessment was seemingly proved
correct when Quadrant sold The Jewellery Group to one of
the world’s largest jewellery manufacturers: Mumbai-based
M Suresh Group DMCC. In November 2017, Jeweller reported:
“In a stunning depreciation, Quadrant is tipped to be offloading
the group for less than $20 million – a loss of around $30
million in just over four years.”
At the time of the second sale, industry pundits questioned
the logic of an Indian jewellery manufacturer operating an
Australian-based retail chain, which then accounted for 102
Zamels and 27 Mazzucchelli’s stores.
Zamels had also encountered problems with its brand image
in 2012 when it was fined $250,000 by the Federal Court after
being found guilty of misleading consumers about the savings
CONTINUED ON PAGE 42
40 | December 2020