The sale of a long-established Dubbo hardware business has been postponed amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Brennan family was set to farewell Mitre 10 on Monday after more than 40 years of ownership, and hand it over to the Petrie Mitre 10 Group.
But this week the parties have confirmed the sale has been postponed by mutual agreement and cited coronavirus as the cause.
While no new date has been set for the ownership change, the buyer said the Petrie group remained committed to the Dubbo market.
The delay comes against a backdrop of more and more restrictions on normal activities as governments battle to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
Petrie's Mitre 10 managing director Phillip Petrie said circumstances with the pandemic had been changing daily.
"We're really appreciative of the joint approach Michael and the Brennan family have adopted to the sale and to the change in timing in relation to the coronavirus," he said.
"The professionalism and the approach they've displayed has been very reflective of the true nature of the two families working together to come up with a good solution."
The Petrie Mitre 10 Group started at Mudgee and has expanded to a total of eight stores.
"...just the uncertainty at the present time plus we've got a lot of issues in our existing business to make sure that we can maintain that and keep that in a healthy state for all the staff and family we have employed there," Mr Petrie said.
"So we thought it was appropriate to pause [the sale] for the moment, and come back to that when we have more certainty in the economic and social conditions."
Mr Petrie said there was no new date fixed and that it was "just a matter of reviewing it as we go along".
Brennan's managing director Michael Brennan, part of the family business since it was opened by father Frank in 1976, said both parties had been closely watching events in recent weeks.
"So we basically mutually agreed to postpone the sale until the future's predictable and there's some settling down in what's going on," he said.
The Dubbo retailer who aspires to be a full-time farmer says he appreciates the community's support.
"The lovely fantastic comments we've had from the community and from our staff and from family, it reinvigorates you... really happy in this difficult time to keep retailing and to be here with the staff and to be here with the community and there's no need to go home and go farming at this time, it will be there and we'll get there at one stage," Mr Brennan said.