Thousands of employees at high street shoe chain Barratts and PriceLess are threatened with job loss as attempts to avert crisis failed. Parent company, Stylo’s deal with landlords and creditors to retrieve Priceless and Barratts from administration did not materialise.
Stylo chief executive Michael Ziff had warned that if rescue proposals were not accepted, jobs of nearly 5,400 people will be at risk. Barratts and PriceLess have already gone into administration on January 26. Stylo is likely to apply to be placed in administration in next 2 days, under Deloitte.
Stylo was expecting that creditors of Barratts and PriceLess would ensure to retrieve the business from administration through Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), giving breathing space to company in repayment of debt.
Joint administrator, Daniel Butters, of Deloitte, confirmed that landlords and creditors refused to accept CVA proposal put before them in a meeting yesterday. He also stated that company was seeking to achieve a sale in order to preserve maximum jobs and was holding dialogue with interested parties to find a quick solution.
Stylo runs 400 high street shoe stores under PriceLess and Barratts brands in the UK and employs 5,450 people.
Stylo, which has headquarters in Yorkshire and Bradford, was founded in 1935.
BAA’s profits are down by nearly 20% due to drop of 4.2 million in number of flyers last year. Heathrow traffic was down only 1.4% overall due to 3.5% increase in long haul traffic. Total passenger numbers covering 7 UK airports dropped by 2.8%. while Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick combined registered 2.6% drop, accounting for 3.4 million fewer flyers. Read the rest of this entry »
High Street stores Thomas Cook, Asda, BOQ, Debenhams and HMV have severed ties with the UK’s one of the biggest internet discount firm, after receiving wave of complaints regarding the scheme.
Angry shoppers raised hundreds of objections after it came to light that they were signed up to pay monthly membership fees of £10, under company’s Shoppers Discounts & Rewards scheme, without consent or prior intimation of terms. Read the rest of this entry »
Vodafone announced redundancy of 500 jobs in the UK as part of stringent measures to minimise costs.
The cuts from 10,000-strong workforce of the UK, is aimed at £1 billion of savings worldwide in next 2 years up to March 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
Tesco is all set to lure customers with roll out of “pay day” discount strategy which will help customers ward off effects of credit crunch.
The UK supermarket giant will make huge offers to shoppers at the end of every month when their bank accounts carry maximum cash. Read the rest of this entry »
A report by the Work Foundation urges extension of emergency funding to manufacturing firms if the government really intended to help the UK’s “real economy.”
Work Foundation argues that manufacturing stood best chance of an economic upturn in the backdrop of uncertain performance by the financial services sector and should be provided same access to fund as given to financial services.
According to Ian Brinkley, director at Work Foundation, writing off modern manufacturing, which was getting battering from recession, would be a big mistake. He suggests that we must constantly think what we will be going to live on in future. Ian advocates that as much of industrial base as possible needed to be preserved, since once lost it would be impossible to get it back again. According to him manufacturing sector is highly important for retention as well as creation of jobs, exports and GDP.
Work Foundation report recommends more support for the much transformed UK manufacturing in the area of research and development. TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, welcomed Work Foundation report which recognised importance of manufacturing to the economy and post-recession future. He added that European countries acknowledged importance of retaining skilled teams during recession, it is therefore necessary that government comes forward to help firms preserve knowledge and skills of their workforce during recession.
Derek Simpson, leader of Unite, was glad that Work Foundation was joining their campaign in seeking support for manufacturing during recession.
London’s UK flagship store of world’s largest retailer of organic food, Whole Foods Market, is suffering losses.
In its first quarter report, Whole Food Market’s High Street Kensington store accounted for 50% of its 2% fall in return on investment in less than 2 years of its commencement of sales. Whole Foods veteran, Jeff Turnas, is being posted as regional president of the UK to tide over the crisis. The food retailer rebranded four of its Fresh & Wild stores this month to the Whole Foods Fascia.
According to John Mackey, Chairman, Whole Foods, the operating cash flow on a currency-adjusted basis in the UK, has improved to minus $1.7m in the current year first quarter compared to minus $3.3m during same period last year. He expressed confidence in dedicated and focussed leadership for driving further improvement in financial performance leading to strong ROI in the long run. He added that there wass great potential for growth in the UK and management was initiating proactive actions to improve operations.
In spite of John Mackey’s confident comments, the financial data points out that Whole Foods’ London store has struggled badly since its opening in June 2007 and has suffered from customers’ reluctance in buying at expensive prices and lack of adequate parking facilities. The launch occurred during severe credit crunch when sales of organic food had started tapering off.
Whole Food is actively searching for new sites in the UK and would open stores at new locations very soon.
Jessops, the 230-store camera specialist, is going to breach its lending agreements as it is incurring heavy losses and auditors are raising doubts over its future.
Jessops is holding talks with banks asking to put in place a new covenant test and restructuring of £57.4m debt. It is considering swapping its debt for equity with HSBC, which has 15% stake in retailer’s shares.
According to Jessop’s executive chairman, David Adams, it is not worth carrying £57m of debt when business was generating only £4m. He informed that company was actively seeking help from HSBC and its advisers for putting future business on stable footing and it was highly likely that this would involve restructuring of debt.
That Jessops was faced with very difficult situation was evident from auditors’ statement that restructuring conditions of bank facilities were indicator of material-uncertainty which would put big question mark on company’s and group’s ability to run business.
When questioned whether company was at risk over the next year, Adams replied that there was good possibility but was not very sure about it. He warned that company had good market position and a viable business model, but its priority task was to address the balance sheet.
Jessops registered loss of £19.1m before tax for the year ending September 2008, compared to £9.3m in 2007. Its total loss after tax touched £50.2m.
The downturn and credit crunch have set a new trend in the market – hiring instead of buying!
Hiring has become cost-effective substitute for the cash-strapped consumers in the UK, leading to rapid growth of rental market.
Rumbelows and Radio Rentals had big growth in the past recession, but suffered during days of cheap credit. Now, as banks have started responding to government’s push for lending, rental companies are seizing good opportunity of doing business.
According to Maureen Hinton, retail consultant at Verdict Research, companies are thinking more about renting when it comes to more expensive products. This trend has lot to do with credit and cash flow.
Although costlier in the long term, options of weekly payments in renting are more acceptable to people who are unable to get loan for buying. Considering extra expenses associated with expensive items like cars, renting can be more economical.
It is now much easier to get everything on rent from jewellery, furniture to cars and even pets online.
Erento, an online renting marketplace which began its niche lending services in Britain last year lending from cameras to holiday homes, grew threefold more than its expectations. Customer traffic jumped 92% in January alone.
According to Clinton Patterson, Erento’s director of international operations, credit crisis was the best thing to have happened for the company. He also considered changes in consumers’ behaviour in choosing renting as a better option than buying, as another contributory factor for biggest growth.
DIY products viz. hand drills and floor sanders are in high demand. Surge is also observed in rentals in consumer durables, household goods, particularly furniture and even in handbag rental business.
It sound like a simple task, but picking the right kind of phones for your company can be difficult. If it’s mobiles do you go for a smartphone such as the Palm Treo 700wx or for a simple yet sophisticated looking phone like the Nokia 6500 Classic. If it’s the landline phones you need to decide whether you need a full-blown communication service or just a simple phone and fax combination.
First of all is to determine the size of your business and relate that to how much communication you need to keep control of. Smaller businesses can get away with opting for cheaper low-end phone systems, while larger companies might be better opting for more intelligent and feature-rich services.
Another step is deciding what the communication level needs to be. If it is more technological, devices capable of handling emails and PC functions like the Palm Treo 700wx. otherwise, getting a phone that looks sleek and professional like the Nokia 6500 Classic might be a more ideal approach, it has plenty of features without looking big and clunky.
just remember not to rush and buy the first phones you see or the cheapest. Conversely don’t go for a phone system that does everything and costs ten times as much as the phone that does exactly what you need.