As creditors prepare to meet, Dick Smith employees have been told they will have to wait up to eight weeks to discover whether the stricken electronics retailer will be sold as a going concern.

The receiver of the troubled chain has told employees across its 393 stores it will soon advertise the business for sale and told them they must have written authority from the receiver before undertaking a range of routine tasks such as placing orders or accepting deliveries of goods.

“We are immediately seeking a sale of the business as a going concern and advertisements will appear in the national newspapers shortly,” Ferrier Hodgson receiver, James Stewart, said in a circular to employees.

“We expect that the prospect of achieving a going concern sale will become clear in the next six to eight weeks.”

The time scale raises the prospect that Dick Smith stores may run out of stock after chairman, Rob Murray, said this week the retailer did not have funding to order required inventory for the next four to six weeks.

The first meeting of Dick Smith’s creditors will take place on Thursday 14, January at the Wesley Conference Centre, 220 Pitt Street, Sydney.

The purpose of the meeting is to determine wether to appoint a committee of creditors and, if so, who the committee members will be.

Creditors may also remove to administrators, McGrathNicol, by resolution and appoint someone else as administrator of the company.

A separate meeting for New Zealand creditors will be held in Auckland.

AAP

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