UK bankruptcies in the news

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 04 Jul 2009, 21:41

British Airways and British Telecom are both looking a bit dubious - BT are offering their staff a year off on 25% of salary, in order to try to save making redundancies.

BA are looking quite close to bankruptcy.

Not exactly 'retail' but I thought relevant to this thread anyway.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 04 Jul 2009, 23:10

BA is just an airline, and there are others, but BT must be one of those "too big to fail" companies, like the banks. Brings back memories of little green Morris "Post Office Telephones" vans!

lancasterlad · Post by **lancasterlad** » 07 Jul 2009, 14:07

Coffee Republic in administration - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8138414.stm

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 08 Jul 2009, 17:28

My God no Internet and no coffee..we're DOOMED!!!

Post by **clv101** » 14 Aug 2009, 09:05

clv101 wrote:10? 15? So who are they?

River Island? Top Shop? Monsoon? Warehouse? Austin Reed? HMV? DFS? Allied Carpets? Carpetright? Courts? Comet? Magnet? Wicks?

There goes another:

Allied Carpets' administrators shut 142 stores, 850 jobs lost

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 08 Feb 2010, 19:15

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... nistration

...and another one bites the dust, well they've gone into administration; the snow is being blamed for poor January trading.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 08 Feb 2010, 19:17

Maybe this thread should be renamed '2009 and 2010' or should we just start a new thread? I Doubt this'll be the only retail casualty of the year.

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 08 Feb 2010, 21:05

Waterstones a bit wobbly.

HMV fires boss of Waterstone's after Christmas sales slump

'Highly unsatisfactory' fall in sales despite the failure of high street rival Borders

HMV Group capped a miserable Christmas for high street booksellers yesterday by firing the managing director of its Waterstone's chain following dire festive trading.

The trading woes at the 313-store book chain overshadowed a robust performance at the entertainment retailer HMV over the Christmas period.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 68504.html

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 08 Feb 2010, 21:22

Quintus wrote:Waterstones a bit wobbly.

HMV fires boss of Waterstone's after Christmas sales slump

'Highly unsatisfactory' fall in sales despite the failure of high street rival Borders

HMV Group capped a miserable Christmas for high street booksellers yesterday by firing the managing director of its Waterstone's chain following dire festive trading.

The trading woes at the 313-store book chain overshadowed a robust performance at the entertainment retailer HMV over the Christmas period.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 68504.html

Poor bloke's getting the blame for the fall in reading standards in schools. Perhaps he should have sponsored reading lessons.

Filter Feeder · Post by **Filter Feeder** » 08 Feb 2010, 23:42

Borders have gone too - although still appear to be trading stateside

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 17 Feb 2010, 14:56

Reader's Digest UK files for administration

The publisher of the UK edition of Reader's Digest has today filed for administration after a deal to bail out its pension fund fell through.

US parent company the Reader's Digest Association blamed the move on the UK pensions regulator, which it said had rejected a rescue plan to settle a longstanding pension liability. RDA is itself about to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the US equivalent of administration, after a successful financial restructuring.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/fe ... nistration

Not strictly a retailer, of course, though they've certainly tried to sell me a lot of junk over the years!

Worth mentioning that the national newspapers are hemorrhaging money. The Times & Sunday Times are losing £1m a week and the Guardian £100k a day. The Observer is on the brink of being closed. The Independent is about to be bought by a Russian oligarch and former member of the KGB (he previously bought the London Evening Standard for £1).

The Telegraph is losing £200k a week and is massively in debt to RBS and HBOS; so, in a way, a semi-nationalised paper! Talking of which ...

Governments may bail out newspapers, says Sorrell

Sir Martin Sorrell, head of the advertising giant WPP, said governments may have to step in and support ailing newspapers if losses bring them to the brink of collapse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media ... 87597.html

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 19 Feb 2010, 18:42

HBOS, or Halifax Bank of Scotland Ireland or whatever they're called, came into the Irish market in 2006.

When they opened their local branch, I said at the time, "There's already too many banks here as it is. Someone has to go bust." Of course, people took that as tosh because we were on the crest of a wave.

Well, off they go, all 40 branches of them throughout the republic. They undercut and offered new products and extended opening hours, so they caught a good bit of business off other banks.

Someone said to me today it was a shame, after I'd said they should never have come here, they had good rates. Look where it got them. It was a shame to give people these jobs then yank them away like that.

A local politician said "it's a body blow for the banking sector". No it's not, it's the 'free market' they so idolise, doing what it's supposed to.