Mary Martin Bookshop in liquidation

The Mary Martin Bookshop in Adelaide has been placed into voluntary liquidation.

Liquidators Clifton Hall was appointed to the company on Friday 21 September. The store, which is located on Rundle Street in Adelaide’s CBD, is no longer trading.

According to a notice filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, a meeting of creditors is scheduled for Tuesday 2 October. Creditors who would like to attend the meeting, either in person or by proxy, have until 28 September to submit proofs of debt to the liquidators.

The business, which is not associated with the Mary Martin Bookshop in Melbourne, is owned by Sarita and Justin Chadwick. The Chadwicks purchased the store in 1999, and in 2009 opened a second bookstore in a heritage-listed church in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood. As previously reported by Bookseller+Publisher, the Norwood store closed in August.

The original Mary Martin Bookshop was first opened by Mary Martin in Adelaide in 1945. After Martin sold the business in 1962, the bookstore focussed on remainder books, and was later sold to Macmillan, which developed a franchise network of Mary Martin stores across the country. After the franchise network was wound-up, the remaining stores became independent.

Clifton Hall liquidator Mark Hall told Bookseller+Publisher that the store’s main asset is its books, and whether or not creditors will receive any remuneration from the liquidation process will largely depend on the sale of the books. He said the liquidators are also talking to the store’s landlord about the current lease on the shopfront.

Hall said the liquidation is the result of tough trading conditions in the retail industry and for bookstores in general. ‘The store was facing the same issues faced by many other bookstores around the country,’ he said.

According to a news article from In Daily, the Rundle Street and Norwood stores had been for sale ‘for some time’.

Tags: retail

Category: Local news