What's going to collapse next...

[sancho panza]

7 hours ago, spygirl said:

EY quits as auditor for Travelex owner Finablr

Two directors resign from FTSE 250 payments and foreign exchange group

m/content/048abb7c-92f7-49e5-b264-92b6274f4baa

that a bad sign?

[sancho panza]

9 hours ago, Napoleon Dynamite said:

Nobody mentioned Capita for a while.  Taken another big hit lately, don't think they have much "Working from Home" capability.

 

Looks like countrywide chart.Just with different numbers

[eek]

11 hours ago, sancho panza said:

that a bad sign?

It says the accounts are a pack of lies but we didn't know at the time that we were being lied to.

For know you could use the word care but I suspect that's libel so I will keep that separate. Auditors know they are only as good as the information the client gives them. If the client is intentionally lying there is nothing an auditor can really do unless they catch it

[Chewing Grass]

All eggs one basket:-

Massarella Gelaterie Ltd has gone into administration and closed all 32 of its outlets, all of which were in House of Fraser stores, including the one in Meadowhall which employed 15.

https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/340-jobs-lost-sheffield-based-cafe-chain-goes-administration-2525061

[Bedrag Justesen]

Cath Kidston lines up administrators.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-vintage-retailer-cath-kidston-lines-up-administrators-11968548

Edited April 4, 2020 by Bedrag Justesen

[spunko]

15 minutes ago, Bedrag Justesen said:

Cath Kidston lines up administrators.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-vintage-retailer-cath-kidston-lines-up-administrators-11968548

They were going bust months ago. I haven't looked but I am getting a strong whiff of private equity corporate raiding, the fad for printing flowers on everything was never going to last.

Edit: Aaaah

In 2010, she sold a majority stake of the company to private equity investors TA Associates,^[8] retaining a minority stake and remaining the company's Creative Director.^[8]

[sancho panza]

Thar she blows...

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/04/05/lockdown-hits-uk-commercial-real-estate-retail-landlords-their-investors-most-property-mutual-funds-suddenly-gated/

Lockdown Hits UK Commercial Real Estate, Retail Landlords & Their Investors: Most Property Mutual Funds Suddenly “Gated”

by Nick Corbishley • Apr 5, 2020 • 87 Comments

Never before have so many property funds shut the doors on so many property investors.

By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET:

Against this backdrop of unprecedented uncertainty, as tenants of shops, bars, restaurants and offices refuse to pay their rents en masse and almost all commercial property deals fall through, it’s all but impossible to put an accurate price on the current value of commercial real estate.

Virtually no one can escape the economic fallout from Covid-19. Not even the owners of commercial real estate, who benefited so handsomely from the central bank-engineered bailouts and property bubbles of the past decade, are immune.

In the UK, a decision by the government to grant retail tenants a three-month moratorium against eviction — an essential lifeline for many businesses that have seen their incomes dry up or drop dramatically as a direct result of the lockdown — has shifted the locus of immediate financial stress from tenants to property owners and their lenders.

The shuttered bars and restaurants in central London are a case in point. Early last week, they received a collective quarterly rent bill of around £500 million. But most of the bars and restaurants took advantage of the government’s moratorium: Instead of paying their rents, they decided to use the freed-up cash to try to weather the crisis. Now, it’s their landlords who are suddenly short of money and who may, as a result, struggle to pay their staff and meet fixed costs such as quarterly interest payments to lenders.

The same is happening across the retail landscape. Some commercial landlords received less than a third of their expected rent on Wednesday.

They include Intu, the embattled owner of dozens of semi-shuttered malls in the UK, as well as a handful in Spain, which revealed it had collected just 29% of expected first-quarter rent, even after offering a deferral and cutting service charges. That compares to 77% during the same period last year, which was already low.

Even before the virus crisis, the company was already on its last legs having endured wave after wave of retail restructurings, resulting in soaring vacancies and plunging property values. In mid-March, two weeks before the UK government initiated a generalized lockdown of the retail sector, Intu warned it was on the brink of bankruptcy after declaring losses of £2 billion for 2019 and a debt of £4.5 billion. Its shares are now worth just four pennies a piece, having tumbled by 96% over the past year.

Intu is now threatening to take legal action against non-paying tenants, saying it would not “bankroll” retailers that have “just decided they don’t want to pay their rent.” Many other retail landlords are reportedly doing the same, despite the fact that many of their tenants have had to halt the lion’s share, if not all, of their business activity, decimating their earnings for the foreseeable future. Even before this crisis hit, many of these retailers were already struggling in the face of slowing sales, high costs, low profitability and rising competition from online rivals.

Intu is also frantically lobbying the government to grant it access to the £330 billion of state-backed loans and guarantees the government has pledged to roll out in support of businesses affected by the lockdown. If the government caves, Intu may have a fighting chance of renegotiating the huge loans it owes to its lenders before the covenants on some of those loans are broken.

Given the company already failed spectacularly in its bid to raise fresh funds from investors earlier this year, the banks may end up deciding not to throw yet more bad money after bad, even if the government agrees to guarantee up to 80% of any new loans. After all, once the lockdown begins to be lifted, the UK’s bricks-and-mortar sector will be in an even more parlous state than it was before the crisis, as evidenced by department store Debenhams’ announcement Friday that it is filing for bankruptcy, less than a year after being rescued by lenders, which wiped out its stockholders.

There’s no way of knowing how many more retail chains and store will follow in Debenhams’ doomed footsteps. Against this backdrop of unprecedented uncertainty, as tenants of shops, bars, restaurants and offices refuse to pay their rents en masse and almost all commercial property deals fall through, it’s all but impossible to put an accurate price on the current value of commercial real estate.

This is the rationale being used to justify gating most of the UK’s large open-end property mutual funds, trapping over £20 billion of investor funds. The first wave of closures, in mid-March, affected around a dozen mutual funds that offer daily withdrawals to their (predominantly retail) investors, even though the funds’ core investment — offices, industrial property and retail parks — is extremely illiquid, often taking months to offload. Between them, these funds manage some £11 billion of assets, equivalent to around a third of the total assets under management in the UK’s property fund sector.

At the end of March, a fresh wave of gatings hit, as the £3.4 billion BlackRock UK Property, the £2.4 billion Schroder UK Real Estate funds and five institutional funds managed by Royal London and Legal & General, including one with assets of £3.4 billion, announced they were suspending redemptions for the foreseeable future. Unlike the earlier round of closures, these funds have quarterly or monthly redemptions and are typically held by institutional investors with a more long-term investment approach.

“The basic issue is the same: there’s fundamental uncertainty over the net asset value,” said independent property consultant John Forbes. “That’s compounded if the rent income doesn’t arrive. That potentially makes the valuation more challenging.”

In times of extreme financial stress and uncertainty, it’s not unusual for real estate to be plagued by acute liquidity issues. In June 2016, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, six commercial real estate (CRE) funds suspended redemptions. But never before have so many real estate funds shut the doors on so many real estate investors.

Those investors are likely to have to wait quite some time before they see any of their money again. Material uncertainty “is still going to be here on June 30. I’m incredibly doubtful that we’ll be through this on September 30. [The funds] can’t resume trading until then,” said Mr Forbes. If the recent experience of the gated (and eventually wound down) Woodford Equity Income fund is any indication, by that time the investors may suddenly find that the value of their investment has significantly shrunk. By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET.

In Hong Kong, sales at luxury goods stores, once the largest category, collapsed by 86% since their peak in 2013. Read... A Word About Hong Kong’s Retail Sales Collapse: It’s a Mess

[eek]

10 hours ago, sancho panza said:

“The basic issue is the same: there’s fundamental uncertainty over the net asset value,” said independent property consultant John Forbes. “That’s compounded if the rent income doesn’t arrive. That potentially makes the valuation more challenging.”

The Net Asset Value of any retail premise or office in the Uk is now, probably, zero. If you can see people successfully working from home why would you spend a fortune on office space and force them to waste hours every day commuting to the office.

I really suspect the amount of office space required will half or quarter as people decide that face to face stuff only needs to be done 2-3 days a week.

[Noallegiance]

23 minutes ago, eek said:

The Net Asset Value of any retail premise or office in the Uk is now, probably, zero. If you can see people successfully working from home why would you spend a fortune on office space and force them to waste hours every day commuting to the office.

I really suspect the amount of office space required will half or quarter as people decide that face to face stuff only needs to be done 2-3 days a week.

Robert Kyosaki's mentor told him in 1981 that the most expensive real estate in the world would one day be used to house the homeless.

[sancho panza]

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/holland-barrett-staff-demand-stores-close-during-lockdown/

Staff at health supplement retailer Holland & Barrett are demanding it closes its stores on safety grounds amid the coronavirus pandemic.

An online petition said the chain, which has more than 700 shops across the UK, was seen as an “essential” business due to it selling products that cater for people with dietary requirements.

However, the creators of the petition – which has received more than 3500 signatures -added that being on the “front lines” in stores was “very difficult” for staff and increased the risks of spreading the virus.

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/retail-footfall-dives-81-in-2nd-week-of-lockdown/

Retail footfall dives 81% in 2nd week of lockdown

By

Elias Jahshan

-

April 7, 2020

Sprinboard's data does not show what people were doing on their excursions and simply record the number of people walking through. (Image PA Wire)

 

// Footfall rose 9.5% on Saturday & 21.3% on Sunday against the same weekend a week earlier

// However, footfall for last week dived 81.4% against the same period last year

// Springboard warned that the Easter long weekend would be “unrecognisable”

---

Footfall in high streets and shopping destinations jumped last weekend as warmer weather brought more people out of their homes, according to new data.

Figures from retail experts Springboard showed that footfall rose 9.5 per cent on Saturday April 4 and 21.3 per cent on Sunday April 5, against the same weekend a week earlier.

It reported a particular spike in footfall in central London, where footfall jumped 51.4 per cent on Sunday.

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-tk-maxx-extends-supplier-payment-terms/

TK Maxx has reportedly extended supplier payment terms by 90 days after closing its online store last week amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In a letter to suppliers, TK Maxx parent group TJX Europe’ chief buying officer Roger Bannister said the business and its vendor community was facing unprecedented times as the Covid-19 situation unfolds daily, Drapers reported.

The group said it would extend merchandise payment terms for all divisions including TJX Europe.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Wrong thread...

Edited April 8, 2020 by TheCountOfNowhere

[spygirl]

https://www.ft.com/content/98f0c573-1eea-4c6f-8dda-0dea9e9baf7a

Forgotten about AA

Thats some collapse in shareprice.

Comments:

 

Once upon a time private equity meant buying a failing company, installing competent management, and exiting with a profit through an IPO. Bob Townsend and Avis is a classic example. Now private equity has all the morality of a pump and dump bucket shop share pusher, AA being the current model.

 

[spygirl]

On 10/03/2020 at 20:16, spygirl said:

NMC Health discovers almost $3bn of debt hidden from its board

Middle Eastern-focused healthcare group said debt was used for unknown purposes

https://www.ft.com/content/ebe322f2-62ef-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

Fuck me! Who knew that was there......

 

NMC has been run thru the finest n most expensive UK auditors....

And it's dead tomorrow.

I think we know who's caused this- Muddy Wates short sellers.....

[SillyBilly]

Rather surprised we've not had 1 or 2 more high profile casualties already in honesty. Expect another week and we'll get another big retailer/restaurant chain going into admin, any guesses?

[Popuplights]

20 minutes ago, SillyBilly said:

Rather surprised we've not had 1 or 2 more high profile casualties already in honesty. Expect another week and we'll get another big retailer/restaurant chain going into admin, any guesses?

Nandos.

[Loki]

Just now, Popuplights said:

Nandos.

I was going to post that myself but it seemed too contrarian! 

[spygirl]

19 minutes ago, Popuplights said:

Nandos.

Jesus. My kids would go nuts.

 

19 minutes ago, Loki said:

I was going to post that myself but it seemed too contrarian! 

I'd say it's unlikely.

Nandos is genuinely popular and is very busy.

I've walked by Nandos at various times between 12pm n 10pm. Its always busy.

[spygirl]

On 08/04/2020 at 18:14, spygirl said:

And it's dead tomorrow.

I think we know who's caused this- Muddy Wates short sellers.....

https://www.ft.com/content/dd71ea1c-92a7-4f88-81f4-c3602c0c65dd

NMC Health goes into administration

Judge says ‘something had gone very wrong’ with oversight at former FTSE 100 group    

[spygirl]

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has almost $1bn in debt exposure to NMC. Its application to the court was backed by other bank creditors including Barclays, which has a $146m exposure, Dubai Islamic Bank which is owed $541m, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank which is owed $325m and Standard Chartered.

Years ago .... when oil was $90+/barrel an the Western economies were tanking, ther were loads of Islamic finance this n that. which explained how the Sharia lending was better than Western profit/interest based lending.

Sharia takes an interest, and gets paid without interest. Of course, it was just like Western banking except with a distorted setup to avoid saying 'interest'

My question then was - What happens if the investment goes really bad?

I was assured it would not, a Sharia finance was superior to Western banking.

 

 

 

[sleepwello'nights]

On 27/03/2020 at 14:58, Sasquatch said:

 (or 'loss and expense' for scaffold hire overruns etc etc) 

I never understand why any business accepts this cost. A few metal poles and planks of wood the cost of which is paid for in the erection charges.

Many companies I've worked in have the odd hire cost that is a trivial amount but when looked at in totality has cost them many multiples of buying the object instead of hiring it.

I guess its just because they forget about it. I can understand it for a large organisation but even small companies that I've prepared accounts do it. One client hired out a printer that would have cost maybe £2-300 when new to  customer for 10 years at £10 a month. Good for him not the hirer.

Funnily enough the company that hired the printer was a scaffolding company. 

[Zanu Bob]

56 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has almost $1bn in debt exposure to NMC. Its application to the court was backed by other bank creditors including Barclays, which has a $146m exposure, Dubai Islamic Bank which is owed $541m, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank which is owed $325m and Standard Chartered.

Years ago .... when oil was $90+/barrel an the Western economies were tanking, ther were loads of Islamic finance this n that. which explained how the Sharia lending was better than Western profit/interest based lending.

Sharia takes an interest, and gets paid without interest. Of course, it was just like Western banking except with a distorted setup to avoid saying 'interest'

My question then was - What happens if the investment goes really bad?

I was assured it would not, a Sharia finance was superior to Western banking.

 

 

 

Interesting what the judge said on Blooomberg..a heartwarming tale of bankers needing charity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/nmc-won-t-oppose-administration-sought-by-bank-in-u-k-court

 

Troubled hospital operator NMC Health Plc was placed into administration by a U.K. court to protect the assets of the Middle East’s largest health-care provider.

 

 

NMC didn’t oppose the effort by creditor, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. Judge Sebastian Prentis said there was no alternative to administration after hearing the arguments via videoconference.

 

 

• Lawyer for Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank says there are concerns that the NMC Group will be unable to pay employees in the months to come and that the whole NMC Group may collapse.
• “If this happens, it will imperil the health of the citizens in the UAE,” lawyer says in court filing. Bank “considers that steps must be taken now, before it is too late, to secure the company’s financial position.”
• State-owned Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC proposed Alvarez & Marsal as administrator
• Judge says NMC is cashflow insolvent
• Another creditor, Barclays, is owed $146 million, lawyers say in court

[reformed nice guy]

2 hours ago, spygirl said:

former FTSE 100 group    

Another black mark against passive index trackers

I wonder how much globally in total these passive trackers have lost due to the NMC administration?

[sancho panza]

Interesting to the the LL's want paying depsite the fact that a lot of companies retial sales have collpased.

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-700-workers-furloughed-at-fortnum-mason/

Fortnum & Mason has reportedly placed 700 staff onto the government’s emergency wage subsidy programme to subsidise the wages of 80 per cent of its staff.

The decision which was made on Wednesday, comes as the retailer faces a prolonged shutdown of its famous London Piccadilly store.

The 313-year old retailer has become the latest to utilise the furloughing scheme, which is designed to secure jobs that would have otherwise been lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

 

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-boots-poundstretcher-in-legal-dispute-over-unpaid-rent/

Boots is reportedly among retailers facing legal action due to its failure to pay rent despite staying open during the coronavirus lockdown.

Landlords will begin legal proceedings against the health and beauty retailer as well as discount chain Poundstretcher for refusing to pay rent, Financial Times reported.

Both businesses will be served with statutory notices in a bid to force them to pay up.

Meanwhile, Poundstretcher revealed a slump in profits on Tuesday – which swung the chain’s future into uncertainty.

Turnover rose 12.2 per cent to £434.6 million while profits slumped from £2 million to a £227,000 pre-tax loss in the year ended March 31 2019.

The discount retailer closed 16 stores last year and opened 72.

[spygirl]

1 hour ago, sancho panza said:

Interesting to the the LL's want paying depsite the fact that a lot of companies retial sales have collpased.

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-700-workers-furloughed-at-fortnum-mason/

Fortnum & Mason has reportedly placed 700 staff onto the government’s emergency wage subsidy programme to subsidise the wages of 80 per cent of its staff.

The decision which was made on Wednesday, comes as the retailer faces a prolonged shutdown of its famous London Piccadilly store.

The 313-year old retailer has become the latest to utilise the furloughing scheme, which is designed to secure jobs that would have otherwise been lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

 

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-boots-poundstretcher-in-legal-dispute-over-unpaid-rent/

Boots is reportedly among retailers facing legal action due to its failure to pay rent despite staying open during the coronavirus lockdown.

Landlords will begin legal proceedings against the health and beauty retailer as well as discount chain Poundstretcher for refusing to pay rent, Financial Times reported.

Both businesses will be served with statutory notices in a bid to force them to pay up.

Meanwhile, Poundstretcher revealed a slump in profits on Tuesday – which swung the chain’s future into uncertainty.

Turnover rose 12.2 per cent to £434.6 million while profits slumped from £2 million to a £227,000 pre-tax loss in the year ended March 31 2019.

The discount retailer closed 16 stores last year and opened 72.

100s of millions was spent on fees that encouraged retail groups to off load their property to specialist property groups, whod 'run it better'

Pick a UK retailer, look at their books in 80s, then look at them in 2000s.

Whatever saving was lost as the LL gouged the rents higher n higher. Now c19 has blasted them.

All that's left are LLs with empty property with massive debt, and  insolvent retailers who would have returned more money if they'd not sold up and been able to hunker down and control their cash flow better.

Gormless, fucked up, v expensive, cretinous 'professional's advice.

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by spygirl

[Wight Flight]

1 hour ago, sancho panza said:

Boots is reportedly among retailers facing legal action due to its failure to pay rent despite staying open during the coronavirus lockdown.

Landlords will begin legal proceedings against the health and beauty retailer as well as discount chain Poundstretcher for refusing to pay rent, Financial Times reported.

Both businesses will be served with statutory notices in a bid to force them to pay up.

Dangerous game.

The landlord could just enter the premises and change the locks.

No court order is required.

That the landlord hasn't done this suggests that they really don't want to lose the tenant.