Toys ‘R’ Us goes into administration in Australia

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TOYS ‘R’ US Australia has gone into voluntary administration months after the US and UK retail giant’s collapse.

Directors of the company resolved to appoint voluntary administrators McGrathNicol after the withdrawal of the final bidder for the sale of the Australian business, McGrathNicol said in a statement on Monday.

All Toys ‘R’ Us Australia stores will remain open and continue to trade while the administrators explore options for the sale.

The stand-alone Australian business operates 44 retail stores across Australia and employs about 700 permanent staff.

Toys ‘R’ Us filed for bankruptcy protection in the US last September and after frantic attempts to restructure the business finally waved the white flag in March when chief executive David Brandon told employees the retailer’s more than 700 remaining US locations would go along with 33,000 jobs.

“We’re putting a for sale sign on everything,” Mr Brandon told employees in a conference call. “Frankly, all anyone has to do is offer one dollar more (than liquidators).”

Shortly afterwards, the UK and Irish operations also shut up shop.

Toys ‘R’ Us in Australia has continued to trade as normal with speculation the company may bundle the business up with the Asian stores and sell the whole lot off, potentially as a stand-alone operation under the same and much-loved brand.

The development follows an unusual fire sale of the US business’s intellectual property to pay off creditors in the wake of its bankruptcy.

Alongside the Geoffrey the Giraffe logo and the Babies R Us trademark, the firm is also putting up a series of racy URLs including kinkytoysrus.com, sex-toys-r-us.com, and toysrussucks.com.