Rules & compliance
When a blinds company changes hands, how would you know? Mostly, you would not
Public registers registers and thresholds checked 29 August 2026
Retail chains in this trade get bought and sold, and the buyer with a deposit down is the person it matters to. So we went looking for what a member of the public can actually establish about who owns a window-covering business. The answer is narrow and worth knowing before you need it: the free registers record what a company IS, not who owns it, and the ACCC's new mandatory merger register, which has published notified acquisitions since 1 January 2026, begins at $200 million in combined Australian revenue. A chain of blinds stores does not come close. The sale of one is, as a matter of public record, invisible.
We have written before about the register that tells you a company has failed, and the one that does not. This is the question underneath it, and it is the one readers ask first. Whether a company has collapsed and whether it is still the same business you dealt with are different questions, and the public record answers them very differently.
What each free register actually answers
Three public sources, three different questions
| Source | Answers | Does not answer |
|---|---|---|
| ABN Lookup (Australian Business Register) | Whether an ABN is active, from when, GST registration, trading names, state | Whether the company has failed, and who owns it |
| ASIC company register | The company's legal status, including external administration, and the names recorded against an ACN | Who the shareholders are, and whether they have changed |
| ACCC acquisitions register | Acquisitions that had to be notified, and the decision on each | Anything below the notification thresholds, which is most of this trade |
Read 29 August 2026. The first two are free and searchable by anyone; the third is a published register of notified transactions, not a record of all sales.
The merger register starts a long way above this trade
From 1 January 2026 Australia's merger control regime became mandatory: businesses must notify the ACCC of a proposed acquisition that meets the thresholds, and wait for approval before proceeding. The ACCC publishes the notifications and the decisions. That sounds like exactly the public record a consumer would want, and for large transactions it is.
The thresholds are the problem. The ACCC's own guidance sets the main test at combined Australian revenue of at least $200 million, together with either target Australian revenue of $50 million or a global transaction value of $250 million. A second limb catches very large acquirers, at $500 million of acquirer group Australian revenue with a target on $10 million. There are matching tests for serial acquisitions over three years, and asset-based thresholds from 1 April 2026.
When an acquisition must be notified to the ACCC
| Limb | Acquirer or combined | Target or deal |
|---|---|---|
| Large merged firm | $200m combined Australian revenue | $50m target Australian revenue, or $250m global deal value |
| Very large acquirer | $500m acquirer group Australian revenue | $10m target Australian revenue |
| Serial acquisitions, 3 years | $200m combined | $50m cumulative in the same or substitutable goods |
| Serial, very large acquirer | $500m acquirer group | $10m cumulative in the same or substitutable goods |
ACCC thresholds guidance, read 29 August 2026. All limbs also require the target to be carrying on business in Australia and no exemption to apply.
So an empty search proves nothing. If you look for a window-covering business on the acquisitions register and find no entry, that is what the thresholds predict. It is a fact about the register, not about the company. We make the point because the reverse inference is easy to draw and would be wrong.
The one change that is visible, and it is not ownership
A company can change its name while remaining the same legal entity, and that does leave a trace. Searching ASIC's company register on 29 August 2026 for "Dollar Curtains" and then for "Crosby International" returns the same company number, ACN 068 338 787, under two different company names. ABN Lookup returns the matching ABN 98 068 338 787 as active since 1 April 2000, GST registered, in Victoria, with the entity name Crosby International Pty Ltd.
That is a name history, and a name history is not a sale. The same entity, the same ACN and the same ABN persist through a change of name, and they equally persist through a change of shareholders that leaves no public trace at all. From the free registers we could not establish which of the two names is the current one, when the change happened, or anything whatever about who owns the company, and we are not going to imply otherwise. What the example shows is the shape of the limit: the register tells you the label changed, and stays silent on everything a customer would actually want to know.
What you can do instead, before the money moves
None of this leaves a buyer helpless, but the useful checks are contractual rather than documentary.
- Check the ASIC status, not just the ABN. External administration shows on ASIC and not on ABN Lookup, which is the one asymmetry that is genuinely a warning. We set that out in the earlier piece.
- Get the ACN on the paperwork, not just a trading name. Trading names move between entities; an ACN does not.
- Ask who honours the warranty in writing, and keep the answer. A warranty is a promise by a particular legal entity, and that is the fact that matters if the business is later run by someone else.
- Understand what a deposit is. ASIC's guidance for creditors treats someone
who has
paid for goods or services that you have not received
as a creditor, which is the position a deposit-holder is in if the entity fails.
The honest summary is that Australia publishes a great deal about companies and very little about ownership, and that the gap is widest exactly where a household is exposed: a mid-sized retailer, a deposit paid, and a warranty that runs for years.
Sources
- ACCC, Thresholds for notifying acquisitions (read 29 August 2026): the mandatory regime applying from 1 January 2026; the large merged firm limb at $200 million combined Australian revenue with $50 million target Australian revenue or $250 million global transaction value; the very large acquirer limb at $500 million with a $10 million target; the three-year serial acquisition limbs at $50 million and $10 million cumulative; the asset thresholds commencing 1 April 2026; and the requirement that the target carry on business in Australia.
- ACCC, Acquisitions and mergers registers and the acquisitions register (read 29 August 2026): that the ACCC publishes details of notified acquisitions and the decisions on them, and that the register covers notifications rather than all acquisitions. Searched the same day for window-covering businesses, with no matching entry, which the thresholds above predict.
- ASIC company register, searched 29 August 2026 via the Australian Business Register and ASIC company name search: ACN 068 338 787 returned under the company names Dollar Curtains & Blinds Pty Ltd and Crosby International Pty Ltd, both recorded as registered. Searchable at ASIC's registers.
- Australian Business Register, ABN Lookup, searched 29 August 2026: ABN 98 068 338 787, entity name Crosby International Pty Ltd, Australian private company, status Active effective 1 April 2000, GST registered from 1 July 2000, Victoria.
- ASIC, Liquidation: a guide for creditors (Information Sheet 45, read 28 August 2026): the treatment of a person who paid for goods or services not received as a creditor.
How we did this. Every fact here was read first-hand from the register or guidance cited, on the dates given. We searched the ACCC acquisitions register for window-covering businesses and found none, and we have reported that as a consequence of the published thresholds rather than as evidence about any company. The ASIC and ABN Lookup entries are reproduced as returned; we did not establish which company name is current, and we make no claim about the ownership of any business named here. One line of enquiry is recorded as closed rather than pursued: the website of one of the businesses named served a bot-protection challenge to us, and we do not work around those, so nothing on it was read. The final section is practical advice built on the sources listed and is offered as our own view.
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