"'Berserk' factories, debts and excuses: Suppliers of collapsed Australian fashion giant speak out", 21 June 2025

Annabell Mihic...found success working with factories in Bangladesh sourcing designs, fabrics and clothes for retail companies Pretty Girl Fashion Group and Specialty Fashion, owners of some of Australia's major heritage brands such as Noni B, Katies, Rockmans and Millers...

Jayson Haydon...was also supplying Pretty Girl Fashion Group and Specialty Fashion, making clothes for brands such as Noni B, Rockmans, Autograph, Millers and W-Lane...

...Annabell and Jayson say things started to unravel for them after... Scott Evans, a retail executive and Richard Facioni, a former Macquarie Group banker, joined forces to buy up the fashion companies...

...Evans and Facioni first bought Noni B, becoming its CEO and chairperson respectively. Then between 2014 and 2019, with Luka Softa as their CFO, they continued a mission to become Australia's largest fashion retailer by snapping up many of the country's mid-tier fashion groups...before merging and rebranding them all under one name: Mosaic Brands.

Annabell and Jayson say the day Evans and Facioni took over Pretty Girl Fashion Group their payment terms were immediately extended.

"We received a phone call from a buyer in Pretty Girl Fashion Group who said there's been a takeover and our payment terms have completely changed," Annabell said. "It's now 120 days."

These new contract negotiations meant Annabell was no longer paid 30 days after her goods were shipped. She now had to wait 120 days...

Annabell says her terms were later extended to 200 days and, in some circumstances, more than 300 days...

"It's a vicious cycle," Annabell said. "I can't give the money to the factories. [Which means] the factories can't open letters of credit [with their banks] for the goods that they are going to make. It was a nightmare."..

Jayson said the situation placed incredible pressure on his business and the factories he worked with, which refused to supply him the goods he needed without payment...

These lengthy payment terms benefited the buyers like Pretty Girl Fashion and latterly Mosaic Brands by freeing up cash for their business...

Come 2018, Annabell and Jayson...stopped being paid on time...

Annabel and Jayson...had mounting interest and debt with financiers, while factories and suppliers in Bangladesh and China were chasing them for their own payments...

Annabell and Jayson said they were met with endless excuses from Mosaic Brands...

"Nothing about how I have been treated has been normal to me. I don't feel that any other retailer, Australian or international, that I've worked with has ever done that."...

...in 2021, [Jayson] was forced to put his company On Trend into voluntary administration and ultimately, liquidation...

But he could never pay back the companies he owed money to in China...

He added that some of the factories in China were able to recoup their money through insurance, but others went under.

Dateline sought comment from Evans, Facioni and Softa, but they all declined.

A year after Jayson, Annabell lost everything too...

For Annabell, things reached their worst when she was owed around US$8 million in unpaid invoices for goods supplied to Mosaic Brands.

"It's not my money, I'm just a glorified bank; I was the agent. It's the factories, it's the people that made the clothes. It wasn't my money, I let them down," Annabell said, crying as she recalled the responsibility she still feels...

To this day, she said she's still owed $570,000 in missing unpaid invoices...

Dateline has spoken to multiple suppliers to Mosaic Brands, not just in Australia but in China, Bangladesh and India, who all said they faced similar payment delays and mounting debts.

At least one factory owner in Bangladesh, one agent in China, and one factory in India say they have also lost their businesses due to Mosaic Brands' late payments and related issues.

It's cost hundreds of jobs — and income for many more family members.

Several other large and mid-size factories spoken to in Bangladesh, which employ thousands of local workers, say they are now also on the brink of collapse...

...administrators for Mosaic Brands issued a preliminary finding that the company may have been operating while insolvent for four years before the company's collapse...