Direct Factory Outlets, abbreviated as DFO, is the name for a no-frills group of discount shopping centres in Australia. They are large-floor warehouse buildings containing partitioned stores where retail outlets sell excess or previous seasons' stocks at reduced prices.
Business model
Its model is to find cheap land, build a cheap but air-conditioned shopping mall. The Direct Factory Outlet retail chain is owned by the privately owned Austexx Group, led by David Goldberger and David Weiland with their first centre opened at Moorabbin Airport in 1997. Former Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chief Graeme Samuel holds a $50 million interest in Austexx through a blind trust. Valued at A$1.5 billion, in early 2010 the business was put up for sale with a number of retail investment funds expressing interest. DFO centres have traditionally been located around airports: a side effect of the Airports Act of 1996, the Commonwealth Government has planning control over the land, meaning state planning legislation can be bypassed by developers. In addition the property developer is able to exploit the cost difference between retail and industrial rents, gives outlet centre operators a distinct advantage over traditional shopping centres. A survey by Melbourne newspaper The Age in 2007 found that in all three DFO-owned centres, most shops carried at least some full-price, current-season stock, available at normal shopping centres. By 2008 five legal challenges to DFO developments have been made by competing retail developers and the Shopping Centre Council of Australia, all being unsuccessful. On 16 August 2010, lead bank Suncorp-Metway, along with St George Bank, National Australia Bank and Lloyds Banking Group, issued a notice to parent company Austexx demanding repayment within 24 hours of the A$450 million they are owed. The South Wharf centre was under an A$500 million debt, with work on completing the centre stopped after workers placed bans over non-payment. Parent company Austexx is understood to have total debts of A$1.2 billion, with the four relatively successful DFO sites used as cross-collateral for bank-funded expansion into five other less successful locations. The group of banks appointed insolvency specialists KordaMentha as advisers, with the entire group facing receivership. Negotiations continued until a deal was struck on Thursday 19 August, the four banks extending their funding to allow the South Wharf development to be completed. The ten DFO shopping complexes will then be sold off separately to repay the $1 billion owed to the banks. The banks hope to recoup most or all of the money they are owed by avoiding a 'fire sale' of assets, but neither Austexx founders or other investors are expected to be repaid until the bank debts are settled.
DFO Moorabbin – Cheltenham, south-east of Melbourne. Originally Fairways Leisure Market, the centre was opened in 1992, on land adjacent to Moorabbin Airport. In 1997, the centre was purchased by the Austexx Group and was the group's first of eleven DFO shopping centres in Australia. The centre had approximately 45 stores, on 8,000m2 of land. Since opening, the centre has been expanded to.
DFO Essendon – Essendon, north of Melbourne - opened in Oct 2005
DFO South Wharf & Homemaker Hub – South Wharf, Melbourne CBD
Between 2005 and 2009 DFO Spencer Street operated as part of the Southern Cross railway station complex. Tenants were relocated from 15 October 2009 to the new DFO at South Wharf, the Spencer Street centre being refitted and rebranded by Austexx as "Spencer Street fashion station".
On 21 February 2017 just before 9am, a Beechcraft Super King Air on a passenger charter flight bound for King Island, Tasmania crashed shortly after takeoff from nearby Essendon Airport. All 5 people aboard the flight were killed. As the shopping centre had not opened yet, only staff were at the centre, all of whom were accounted for. The incident was the worst aviation accident in Victoria for 30 years.
