By Lilia Guan
5 May 2008 01:58PM
Tags: ben | morgan | leaves | academy | store

The Academy store, an independent Apple reseller, is set to have new owners with Ben Morgan, managing director, no longer on board. A friend of Morgan’s confirmed that the “hammer was brought down” and the store is currently in the process of changing hands.

A few interested parties have been looking at the Bondi Junction store over the last few weeks. An employee confirmed that Morgan was no longer working there and that the process of finding new owners was underway.

This comes after the Academy Story was ram-raided in 2007 with thieves taking $200,000 of stock. At the time the Academy Store was uninsured for the loss of stock.

Morgan managed to overcome the loss telling CRN exclusively in March that he had pulled the business back from the brink. “At the time he said, “We suffered a lot and it was a very difficult period of time. It was perhaps one of the worst things that could happen financially. At the time I was insured for a limited amount of loss, but in the end we marched on and I got on the sales floor and sold as many products as possible.”

After first purchasing the AppleCentre at Taylor Square in 2000. Morgan opened one of the biggest Apple stores in Australia in 2006. The three-storey glass-fronted building at Westfield Bondi Junction, complete with retail shop, lab and a learning centre was arguably the country’s biggest Apple store at the time.

Calls to Morgan went unanswered at the time of the press.