THERE are new questions over the future of Bathurst's Target store, with growing speculation that it will be converted to a Kmart outlet in coming months.
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The new rumours come just a month after parent company Wesfarmers appeared to have committed to no changes for the Bathurst store.
Wesfarmers told the Australian Stock Exchange in May that it would be converting up to 40 of the group's large format Target stores to Kmart outlets and permanently closing between 10 and 25 stores.
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The company was initially tight-lipped about which stores would be affected but when a list was released on its website, the Bathurst store was slated for neither conversion nor closure.
However, it's now clear Wesfarmers is continuing to make changes to that list with the Parkes store - originally slated to be left as a Target - told this week it would be shutting, instead.
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When contacted by the Western Advocate, a spokesperson for Target would neither confirm nor deny the company was having second thoughts on the Bathurst store, nor whether it would now be converted to a Kmart.
"[We can confirm] at this stage there are no formal announcements regarding Target Bathurst," the spokesperson said.
"We are still undergoing internal and landlord discussions, and will confirm once a decision has been made, and once we have spoken first and foremost to our store team."
Across the group, Target Group sales declined by 1.5 per cent during the 2018-19 financial year and Wesfarmers closed 15 stores across Australia during this 12-month period.
In August last year, Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott said difficult trading conditions had "certainly impacted sales and earnings" for Target stores.
"It's quite difficult to predict what's happening in the Australian economy and what's going on in the global economy where there's quite a lot of uncertainties at the moment," he said.
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