The management team that developed Catch on a shoe string budget performed a fantastical magic trick selling Wesfarmers an absolute lemon. In their book ‘Catch of the Decade’ they generously share how clever they were with a masterful lesson on how to have fun building and exiting your start up to maximise your wealth. Having lived the aftermath, I find it distasteful to boast. Team members unable to cash out from the sale stayed and new managers were hired to replace the team that walked away without notice or care. Wesfarmers bought their fairy tale. At the time Wes too needed to tell their investors a story about their strength in ‘data and digital’ and what a headline it was :Traditional retail portfolio invests in e-commerce and Amazon exec. Little did they know they bought a relationship based business and unfit for purpose digital platform. What’s worse is they bought out the critical employees with the relationships that made it run, Kmart executives made them feel inferior on the way out and hired a new team for an impossible task of retaining these relationships and aggressively growing the business on system held together by ‘sticky tape’ and requirements to fit in with kmart ways of working. The new management were defeated before they could start. Essentially there was nothing of real value left at a Catch, nothing to compete against the founders themselves who were under no conditions to not compete or poach talent which was exactly what they did. Competing against Amazon was never possible. Catch fell behind the day it management walked out followed by its employees who either followed them or went to the competition. This lack of diligence, pre planning, risk mitigation by Kmart and Wesfarmers was indicative of Wesfarmers lack of care for Catch from day 1, they tucked it away under Kmart’s arrogant, egocentric politicians, without so much as seeing what they bought and meeting the expert managers they procure and paid to run and grow the business. Kmart Management were too busy running Kmart and Target, trying prove themselves as ‘portfolios managers’ worthy of Wes board recognition and future Wesfarmers positions. Working at Catch felt more like an season of Succession and not meaningful career. Catch management team were blocked, despite needing to escalate issues arising and risk mitigation, they had no direct access to Wesfarmers board, senior leaders could see this oppressive, unsafe dynamic. They quickly felt disempowered. Catch CEO and executives were pityed and respected for leaving. It was and is unlike any business serious about its customer, it’s investor, it’s people and future impact on the community. Catch CEO and executive requested an audience with the Wesfarmers CEO, CFO, and CHRO despite multiple requests. Catch were blocked, mocked behind doors and forced to spend Kmart size budgets on margin eroding marketing and brand campaigns without a clear and agreed value proposition or reliable customer and delivery platform. Kmart would sit in management meetings without value add other than to insist on a crippling amount of board papers and generic business questions. Hired SMEs had no voice and were made to feel inferior by and at risk of never working in the Wesfarmers portfolio or Australia again should they not comply with Kmart process which was falsely disguised as direction by Wes. Successful e-commerce and digital industry leaders were hired out of high paying, high profile stable roles under a false story by Kmart HR and came to Catch only to be disregarded in favor of Kmart opinions and bullied into saying nothing with the threat of ‘management consultants’ to be bought in if directions are not followed and unreasonable performance isn’t delivered by their unrealistic deadlines. Catch became unsafe to work in psychologically and many employees had to seek counsel outside of the organization as trust has completely broken down. The dysfunctional structure and political behaviour at the expense of focus and progress gets worse under a new CEO and diabolical Wesfarmers ‘CEO minder’. Those who have not been able to leave are getting support from those who have have suffered over the past 3 years and ‘suffered’ is not an understatement. Working for Catch was the worst career decision I have ever made and worst overall experience of my life. I believe most employees outside of their contact centre would say this, perhaps not in the contact Centre.. Many people hired since the founder caused out have moved their families from around the world for Catch without anyone from Wesfarmers to check in or ask from their experienced advice on this complex broken business. The Catch community (past and present) have a deep sense of sadness having watched what ‘leaders’ are capable of doing to people who threaten their ego and power. Wesfarmers managers well never know the broken promises and dreams or appreciate the blood, sweat and tears which is all for nothing but small database claimed and rebranded by Wesfarmers at the eleventh hour. Catch is over. Wesfarmers only job is to figure our how they get out without losing investor confidence. How do they tell a story much like the founders before them. They will have to cut more costs to make the balance sheet look good and maximise their margins. Perhaps the next buyer will perform due diligence and get it right but I think the window of opportunity has closed. Maybe it’s time to end this story