Businesses in financial trouble

[Arthur]

A holdings company in Mauritius? That's not at all suspect...

I can't find any mention of Mauritius on the Companies House page?

 

Edit. That does look a little suspect.

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Arthur

[FishCustard]

@Arthur - check "persons with significant control" under "People".

 

A Mauritanian company owns more than 75% of the shares and can appoint/remove directors. I was confused at first too!

[LeMarchand]

You'll all be gutted to learn that The Money Shop has run out of their core product: https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2019/06/the-money-shop-shuts-because-everyone-hates-it/

[FishCustard]

Cry me a river - hopefully the shops aren't just snapped up by another payday lender...

[Arthur]

Guess who's back...

Toys ‘R’ Us too (at least in the US and Australia).

 

Toys ‘R’ Us, Back From the Dead, Will Open U.S. Stores in 2019

 

About a year after shuttering U.S. operations, the remnant of the defunct toy chain is set to return this holiday season by opening about a half dozen U.S. stores and an e-commerce site, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

Richard Barry, a former Toys “R” Us executive who is now CEO of new entity Tru Kids Inc., has been pitching his vision to reincarnate the chain to toymakers, including at an industry conference this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.

 

The stores are slated to be about 10,000-square feet, roughly a third of the size of the brand’s big-box outlets that closed last year, the people said. The locations will also have more experiences, like play areas. The startup costs could be minimized with a consignment inventory model in which toymakers ship goods but don’t get paid until consumers buy them, some of the people said.

[Arthur]

William Hill plans 700 store closures putting 4,500 jobs at risk

 

Bookmaker William Hill has said it plans to close about 700 betting shops, which could lead to 4,500 job losses.

 

The firm said the move followed the government's decision in April to reduce the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals to £2.

 

Since then, the company added, it had seen "a significant fall" in gaming machine revenues.

 

William Hill, which has 2,300 shops and 12,500 employees, said the closures could begin before the end of the year.

 

"The group will look to apply voluntary redundancy and redeployment measures extensively and will be providing support to all colleagues throughout the process," its statement said.

 

William Hill will not be revealing which stores will close until later this year.

 

Staff at the shops were told about the decision earlier this week.

 

The government cut the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), which had previously been £100, because of widespread concern that players were able to lose large amounts of money in a short space of time.

 

Some critics described the machines as the crack cocaine of gambling.

[LeMarchand]

William Hill plans 700 store closures putting 4,500 jobs at risk

 

You know times are hard when even bookies are closing down!

[mikeprice]

Just show how much they were making on the fixed odd machines

 

Perfectly designed machine to generate gambling addicts from susceptible people - which is great for profits!

[DrCheese]

Not really suprising given that bookies were only adding extra stores because they could only have 4 of these machines in one store, so setup multiple around a town to get around this. They made so much money this was profitable.

 

The job losses are sad, but regulation of this was long overdue

[FishCustard]

Agreed - while I'd never be pleased at jobs being lost, I am pleased that the stores are closing. Town centres don't need a bookmaker (or as you say, effectively a FOBT casino!) every few hundred yards.

[LeMarchand]

Never having been in a bookies, I had no idea that they had so many of these things. I always thought it was unkempt guys sidling up to the counter to put a monkey on HorseWithASillyName in the 2.15.

[6Foot2]

Never having been in a bookies, I had no idea that they had so many of these things. I always thought it was unkempt guys sidling up to the counter to put a monkey on HorseWithASillyName in the 2.15.

 

Before he died last year I was putting bets of for my dad every Saturday morning, and on Boxing Day without fail, for as long as I care to remember (or care not to remember) I can say that the impression you might get from $TypicalTVShow of a betting shop would probably be pretty accurate, especially if it includes scenes where the clientèle is overwhelmingly male (by number) and has recently visited a pub, or will be going back to a pub shortly.

[jthompson]

I was putting bets of for my dad every Saturday morning, and on Boxing Day without fail, for as long as I care to remember (or care not to remember)

 

Were you ever tempted to not place the bets and just pocket the cash for yourself? You have to make the occasional payout, but overall, you'd probably turn a profit.

[sted]

Were you ever tempted to not place the bets and just pocket the cash for yourself? You have to make the occasional payout, but overall, you'd probably turn a profit.

isnt that basically the money making model of a bookie/casino etc

[elsiegee40]

[Arthur]

Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150,000 UK holidaymakers

 

Thomas Cook has ceased trading after talks failed to produce a funding lifeline for the ailing travel company, placing 9,000 British jobs at risk and triggering a huge repatriation effort to bring home 150,000 UK holidaymakers overseas.

 

The Civil Aviation Authority announced at 2am on Monday morning that the world’s oldest holiday company had gone into administration and that all flights and bookings had been cancelled.

 

“Thomas Cook Group, including the UK tour operator and airline, has ceased trading with immediate effect,” the aviation regulator said in a statement. “All Thomas Cook bookings, including flights and holidays, have now been cancelled.”

 

The official administration was timed for the early hours when the largest number of the 94-strong fleet of planes were on the ground.

 

Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook’s chief executive, said the tour operator’s collapse was a “matter of profound regret” as he apologised to the company’s “millions of customers, and thousands of employees”.

 

The government and the CAA have now triggered the UK’s largest ever peacetime repatriation – codenamed Operation Matterhorn – to bring holidaymakers home.

 

Speaking to reporters on his plane heading to the UN general assembly in New York, Boris Johnson hinted at possible government action against directors of travel firms who presided over bankruptcies. The prime minister said that in the wake of the collapse of the budget airline Monarch and Thomas Cook, it was time to “reflect on whether the directors of these companies are properly incentivised to sort such matters out”.

 

Johnson said it did not seem the government could have done more to help, for example agreeing to Thomas Cook’s request for a £150m bailout. “It is a very difficult situation, and obviously our thoughts are very much with the customers of Thomas Cook, the holidaymakers, who may now face difficulties getting home,” he said. “We will do our level best to get them home.”

 

The Guardian understands that airlines including British Airways and easyJet will be involved in the airlift for holidaymakers using Thomas Cook, whose destinations range from mainland Europe to north Africa, the Middle East, the US and the Caribbean.

 

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said on Sunday that the government had contingency plans in place for passengers and sought to reassure holidaymakers that they would not end up stuck overseas. The company had appealed to ministers for a bailout but Raab said the government did not “systemically step in” unless it was in the national interest.

 

“We would wait to see and hope that [Thomas Cook] can continue but in any event, as you would expect, we’ve got the contingency planning in place to make sure that in any worst-case scenario we can support all those who might otherwise be stranded,” Raab told the BBC.

 

Live news updates

 

Why did Thomas Cook fall into insolvency today?

The sad truth, according to industry experts, is that it didn’t keep up with changing times. Tim Jeans, the former boss of Monarch Airlines (which collapsed two years ago), told Radio 5 Live that Thomas Cook’s model of “flying people from airports across the UK to concrete hotels by the sea” doesn’t really work any more.

 

“People don’t want to fly and flop”, Jeans argues. They want experiences instead, but Thomas Cook’s 2019 travel brochures looked like those from 1999.

 

Thomas Cook also owned its own planes, which is handy in high season, but means you have high fixed costs all year round.

 

But clearly plenty of people do still enjoy escaping to, say, Mykonos, Marrakesh or Malta, which is why a huge repatriation effort is now underway to get holidaymakers back home.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Arthur

[bald_pig]

My napkin maths suggests that this will cost the government £82,000,000 based on the figures of the Monarch airline collapse.

[JJonas]

Info for anyone on holiday or with holidays booked https://thomascook.caa.co.uk

[Andrew_C]

My napkin maths suggests that this will cost the government £82,000,000 based on the figures of the Monarch airline collapse.

 

you and me

[DrCheese]

Still, it's less than the £250million they wanted, which would have only really kept it going a few more months only to end up where they are now again. (No one would have booked a holiday with them going forward & they would have had to close high street stores en mass)

 

Think they just stayed too big whist the market for a single operator to book your holiday via the high street form just strunk too small - Most just book everything separately online themselves now which back in the day would have been a nightmare to organise without the Internet. Now you can see real time live reviews & photos of the hotel/experience then just book a flight with cheap operator. There's still definitely a market for the easy life just not with massive high street stores.

[mavhc]

Not sure why they can't just fly all the planes back to the UK with people on them. Planes are there, pilots are there, people are there.

[ZeroHour]

Not sure why they can't just fly all the planes back to the UK with people on them. Planes are there, pilots are there, people are there.

No pay for the staff really as well as all the fuel costs etc. Once they disolve thats it, nothing goes out. A lot of the planes were leased so it may be ATOL scheme is using some of them though.

[Katy]

@mods any chance of a thread rename, as this hasn't been about Maplin for a long time?

[Andrew_C]

Not sure why they can't just fly all the planes back to the UK with people on them. Planes are there, pilots are there, people are there.

The planes will have been impounded by the airports as they won't have been paid landing/service fees. Probably a lot of tax/duty owing too. Edited September 23, 2019 by Andrew_C

[Arthur]

Once they dissolve that's it, nothing goes out.

Not even Thomas Cook himself can get back home! 🙃

 

Hucknall man named Thomas Cook has dream wedding shattered by failed holiday company