Companies going bankrupt/into administration

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 22 Jan 2018, 02:13

Regarding Carillion. I had shares in this company and previously the two that were merged into it, Tarmac and Mowlem. I also had shares in Costain and still do in Balfour Beatty. So three out of four construction businesses I have invested in have gone bankrupt.

It's a good thing I only look after my own money and not other peoples!

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 22 Jan 2018, 11:44

Are there any other companies you are damaging?

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 22 Jan 2018, 11:59

woodburner wrote:Are there any other companies you are damaging?

I tend to bring bad luck to things I get involved in unfortunately. I went on the Herald of Free Enterprise a month before it sank and passed through Kings Cross station a week before the fire for a university interview. I also booked a long haul holiday on 10th September 2001. When I returned to pay on the 12th September the travel agency was very quiet.

I have not had too much luck in shares but I persist with them. I have tried various strategies ranging from 'vulture investment' - buying distressed companies (they tend to go bankrupt shortly afterwards), following my father's tips - as in the construction businesses or looking at the financial media but none seem to have worked. I tend to make money but a rising tide tends to lift all ships. I recall some researchers in Sweden placed the names of random companies on the floor of a monkey enclosure and which name the monkeys defecated closest to they bought. Apparently the monkeys ended up beating the best of the fund managers. You may as well throw a dart in my opinion.

To answer your question - steer clear of banks, supermarkets, oil companies and utilities as I am heavily involved in these at the moment. I rarely sell companies. They either get taken over or go bankrupt.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 22 Jan 2018, 13:00

You sound like that guy who fled Hiroshima after the bomb hit - he took a train to Nagasaki.

Mind you, he did live to be 90-odd.

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 22 Jan 2018, 14:11

emordnilap wrote:You sound like that guy who fled Hiroshima after the bomb hit - he took a train to Nagasaki.

Mind you, he did live to be 90-odd.

At least he knew what to do the second time around. Jump in the water when he saw the flash.

Seriously, and getting back on to subject I have bought shares in British and American companies (an one French and one German). Bay and large the American companies are large, innovative household names that are, I concede, are not liked on this forum and don't pay their taxes. These shares have grown in value. The UK shares I have bought are in general companies that don't innovate, plod along doing the same thing, utilities skimping on investment and sending out bills and collecting the money every quarter.

To me UK companies are badly ran. You cannot put it any simpler than that. CEOs and whole boards of directors basically move from company to company by networking and gentlemen's agreements looting the shareholder's money in the form of elevated salaries, pension pots and bonuses as they go. Debt increases, dividends go up temporarily, board remuneration goes up. Cashflow is bled out the company and reinvestments are not made. There does seem to be a paucity of innovation in the UK at least at the large company scale.

Why otherwise are there no UK large wind turbine manufacturers when Denmark and Spain can do it? I know there is a tendency in the UK not to commercialize research very well but things are getting serious now.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 25 Jan 2018, 23:09

Apparently there are 2 people called Philip Green in this sorry tale. There's Mr BHS, and Mr Carillion.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 31 Jan 2018, 12:39

Next in line in a collapsing outsourcing sector:

Capita

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... p_Facebook

Post by **adam2** » 31 Jan 2018, 12:47

Serves them right !

I am of course very sorry for innocent workers and for suppliers and sub-contractors who may lose money, but for capita themselves and their appalling service, tough.

Capita is often spelt with an "r" inserted between the first two letters.

Before they go bust, I hope that someone checks on their pension fund, before ALL the money is given to directors as bonuses.

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 01 Feb 2018, 12:12

Capita seem to have their fingers in many pies, including allocating postcodes in the Republic of Ireland. They have very high unfunded pension liabilities according to Wikipedia.

I think if the shares go down enough I may have a punt. Woodburner be warned!

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 01 Feb 2018, 12:59

Thank you BritDownUnder, at least it will put them out of action permanently, though whatâ€™s the betting the brown nosed ones will move into something else?

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 01 Feb 2018, 16:16

The mere fact of me talking about it may depress the share price further. I am waiting on may father's comment which may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I bought some Aggreko shares yesterday. They rent out generators and our under construction power plant is full of the damn things. They still seem to be good at losing money though.

I am in fact considering changing my name to Philip Green as this seems to guarantee high earnings, fleeting business success and then infamy albeit tempered by the high walls of the Home Counties country residence. If the heat from angry shareholders/pensioners/former employees becomes sufficiently unbearable then there is always the ski lodge at Klosters or the pad in Monaco.

In the end some of these company directors need to go to prison. It is the only deterrent. In the Middle Ages they had debtors prisons - mostly for the poor I suspect. Saudi Arabia got over $100bn recently from its rich elite.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 16 Feb 2018, 17:42

BritDownUnder wrote:Capita seem to have their fingers in many pies, including allocating postcodes in the Republic of Ireland. They have very high unfunded pension liabilities according to Wikipedia.

I think if the shares go down enough I may have a punt. Woodburner be warned!

I might have said this before, but have you ever thought of joining the Conservative Party?

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 16 Feb 2018, 22:52

RenewableCandy wrote:
BritDownUnder wrote:Capita seem to have their fingers in many pies, including allocating postcodes in the Republic of Ireland. They have very high unfunded pension liabilities according to Wikipedia.

I think if the shares go down enough I may have a punt. Woodburner be warned!
I might have said this before, but have you ever thought of joining the Conservative Party?

Not any more. I don't live in the UK so I would probably be following some Australian party, probably National but they have their own troubles right now, but as I am not a citizen here it may not be possible or worthwhile. I though the Con-Lib coalition in the UK was probably a good thing but a bad time to be government.

Politically I see myself as a very dark green. The problem with Green parties worldwide is that they seem to have become a haven for communists and the like. The present Coalition government in New Zealand looks quite interesting - a three cornered grouping of a nationalist party (NZ First), a Labour party and the Greens.

As it happened I did not get the Capita shares and they rose.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 17 Feb 2018, 11:32

BritDownUnder wrote:...a three cornered grouping of a nationalist party (NZ First), a Labour party and the Greens......

It's strange who some people will get into bed with for a share of power! I always have thought that if you go far enough left you reach the ultra right (think Hitler and Stalin) but I didn't think a Labour Party was that far left!

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 17 Feb 2018, 23:55

Yes the logical coalition would have been with NZ First and the right wing National party but the leader of NZ First, Winston Peters, was formerly in National and has a few grudges.

No doubt that Winston likes power but he has formerly been in coalition with Labour so he knows them.

If Winston can stop the Greens importing 100,000 Syrian refugees to NZ and you get the Greens policy of Solar on every NZ roof and subsidised home insulation then what's not to like?