Woolworths Group (Australia) facts for kids
Woolworths Limited headquarters in the Norwest Business Park
|
|
|
Trade name
|
Woolworths Limited (1924–2017) Woolworths Group (2017–present) |
|---|---|
| Public | |
| Traded as | ASX: WOW |
| Industry | Retailing |
| Founded | 22 September 1924 |
| Founders | Percy Christmas Stanley Chatterton Cecil Scott Waine George Creed Ernest Williams |
| Headquarters |
,
Australia
|
|
Area served
|
Australia, New Zealand |
|
Key people
|
|
| Revenue |  A$63.67 billion (2020) |
|
Operating income
|
A$3.19 billion (2020) |
 A$1.602 billion (2020) |
|
|
Number of employees
|
215,000 (2020) |
| Divisions | Supermarkets (Woolworths, Woolworths Online, Countdown) Liquor (BWS, Dan Murphy's, Langtons, Cellarmasters) General Merchandise (Big W) Finance (Woolworths Finance, Woolworths Rewards) Hotels & Gambling (ALH Group) |
| Subsidiaries | List of Subsidiaries |
Woolworths Group Limited, a major Australian company, has extensive retail interests throughout Australia and New Zealand. It is the largest company in Australia by revenue and the second-largest in New Zealand. In addition, Woolworths Group is the largest takeaway liquor-retailer in Australia, the largest hotel and gaming poker-machine operator in Australia, and was the 19th-largest retailer in the world in 2008.
Despite taking the Woolworths name when it was founded in Sydney in 1924, Woolworths Group has always been independent of F.W. Woolworth Company based in the United States, the Woolworths Group in the UK or the South African chain of retail stores, Woolworths Holdings Limited. Its main operations include supermarkets (under the Woolworths brand in Australia and the Countdown brand in New Zealand), liquor retailing (as BWS and Dan Murphy's in Australia), hotels and pubs under the Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group (ALH Group) umbrella, and discount department-stores under the Big W name in Australia.
On 25 August 2016, the company announced a loss of $1.235 billion for the 2016 financial year, the biggest loss in the more than 20 years since it has been publicly listed on the ASX, mainly due to more than $2 billion in write-downs of the failed Masters business and losses in the Big W business.
