Another round of store closures for Retail Adventures; Optus says data retention will cost $200 million: Midday roundup

Receivers for former BRW Rich Lister Jan Cameron’s discount chain Retail Adventures have announced the closure of an additional 19 stores.

The businesses, located primarily in NSW and Queensland, will close their doors next Sunday. Almost 300 employees will be affected.

The latest round of closures will bring the total number of closed stores to 128. Receivers KordaMentha believe they will be able to pay all employee entitlements by mid-September.

Optus says data retention will cost $200 million

Telecommunications giant Optus has said the federal governments’ data retention plan will cost the company $200 million and warns costs would be passed on to customers.

The warning was made in an internal memo from Optus management, according to Fairfax Media.

“Optus’s interests would be served by ensuring a cost-recovery model is available, and that arguments to the effect that we ‘keep this data anyway’ do not prevail to the extent that inadequate recognition is given to the true cost and business impact,” the memo said.

Optus is the second telco to take aim at Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis’ data retention scheme, with iiNet previously saying it will cost Australian consumers $130 extra a year.

Shares down on open

The S&P/ASX200 Benchmark was down 35 points to 5474 points at 11:57am AEST. On Thursday, the Dow Jones closed down 0.46%, falling 75.07 points to 16,368.27 points.