High Street Stores & Other Businesses At Risk | Page 25 | Vital Football

High Street Stores & Other Businesses At Risk

Wilkos in Redditch is closing. It is one of the last useful stores, the place will be a ghost town/go bust if any more go.

The firm has blamed the Redditch closure on being unable to agree "favourable lease terms" with the landlords of the Kingfisher Centre.


You would have thought the Kingfisher centre would have bent over backwards to keep them, if not for profit, for the footfall as they have a few restaurants up that end.

A report I just read said Wilkos are closing 15 stores.
 
The Fear said:
Wilkos in Redditch is closing. It is one of the last useful stores, the place will be a ghost town/go bust if any more go.

The firm has blamed the Redditch closure on being unable to agree "favourable lease terms" with the landlords of the Kingfisher Centre.


You would have thought the Kingfisher centre would have bent over backwards to keep them, if not for profit, for the footfall as they have a few restaurants up that end.

A report I just read said Wilkos are closing 15 stores.
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My daughter works for Wilko and it's not a nice company to work for. Most of the closures are in Lincolnshire with a few being in seaside towns where the workers will struggle to find alternative employment. Like you said, I can't imagine why some of these landlords wouldn't do what they can to agree a deal as it's highly unlikely they will find anyone else to take on these leases especially given the size of these premises. It just doesn't make sense.
 
Wilko used to be a great shop, but I feel like they’ve got very expensive over the last few years and even the promotions aren’t great. I’ve nothing to base that on in terms of stats so it might be off, but we’ve got a Savers close by which seems to be a lot cheaper also on every day low price.
 
Fulford said:
Like you said, I can't imagine why some of these landlords wouldn't do what they can to agree a deal as it's highly unlikely they will find anyone else to take on these leases especially given the size of these premises. It just doesn't make sense.
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Yes, it seems madness... especially as we have had a few very big stores including a massive Debenhams close there. As you say, the size of the premises, they won't easily re-fill them.
 
Its strange that the bosses never seem to get fired when a company gets into stormy waters!

In other (unrelated) news the airlines fired a load of people during the pandemic and are now cancelling flights because of "lack of staff". The people they fired are unsurprisingly loathe to re-join these companies.

Capitalism innit?
 
Pride of Lions said:
So convenience store chain McColl's has gone into administration with 16,000 jobs at risk......


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61351...m=custom7&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=LR+BBC+WM
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I bought shares in McColls years ago, worth pennies now - literally :slap:. Terrible investment.

For a convenience store not to have improved performance during Covid lockdown when people were either doing big online shops or popping to their closest shops for regular top ups seems strange.

Looks like the Issa brothers who own Asda will buy them. Morrison’s need to concentrate on running their main estate business and would mess it up with McColls so it’s best for the 16k workers it’s not them who buys it.
 
danvilla2 said:
I bought shares in McColls years ago, worth pennies now - literally :slap:. Terrible investment.

For a convenience store not to have improved performance during Covid lockdown when people were either doing big online shops or popping to their closest shops for regular top ups seems strange.

Looks like the Issa brothers who own Asda will buy them. Morrison’s need to concentrate on running their main estate business and would mess it up with McColls so it’s best for the 16k workers it’s not them who buys it.
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Dan you will find this link interesting I think. I new Morrison's had some tie up with it all. It also explains what happened in the pandemic

https://www.nationalworld.com/busin...atest-share-price-news-morrisons-deal-3682808
 
kefkat said:
Dan you will find this link interesting I think. I new Morrison's had some tie up with it all. It also explains what happened in the pandemic

https://www.nationalworld.com/busin...atest-share-price-news-morrisons-deal-3682808
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Good article, the reason I bought the shares in them was due to them buying from Morrison’s wholesale division thinking that would give them the competitive advantage but if they tried to go with all poncy fresh food as Morrison’s tried once, no wonder it went pear shaped (pun intended).
 
Pangloss said:
But how many millions can they take with them?
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I doubt they’ve got much left to take now, the company is only worth £5m so the directors would need to own a high proportion of shares to get much.

On a wider point, sometimes people can be critical of how much directors of companies earn or take as a bonus. McColls had 16k employees I believe, although the trade goes elsewhere the workforce opportunity might not (assuming consolidation and efficiency forcing out badly run companies), which is needed in capitalism, but there is responsibility on directors to perform for the benefit of their employees.
 
danvilla2 said:
I doubt they’ve got much left to take now, the company is only worth £5m so the directors would need to own a high proportion of shares to get much.

On a wider point, sometimes people can be critical of how much directors of companies earn or take as a bonus. McColls had 16k employees I believe, although the trade goes elsewhere the workforce opportunity might not (assuming consolidation and efficiency forcing out badly run companies), which is needed in capitalism, but there is responsibility on directors to perform for the benefit of their employees.
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The primary responsibility on directors is to ensure that healthy dividends are paid to shareholders. Far more important to them than employee's welfare.
 
Minty55 said:
The primary responsibility on directors is to ensure that healthy dividends are paid to shareholders. Far more important to them than employee's welfare.
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The directors are legally obliged to maximise profits. It's insane but true.

Also, technically, shareholders are the bosses and employees are an expense.

Smart employees would buy 1 share (or whatever the minimum is) and show up the AGM with specific complaints about employee welfare.
 
Minty55 said:
The primary responsibility on directors is to ensure that healthy dividends are paid to shareholders. Far more important to them than employee's welfare.
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I didn’t say primary responsibility but yes, maximise shareholder value. But you can’t run a business as a director without being responsible for everything, a retail business in the U.K. which has serious health and safety failures for example would be liable for fines and suffer from PR damage off the back of it.

In terms of the mortgage point, what I meant was the success of the business keeps people employed which in turn generates revenues and ultimately profit (in most cases but not all). There is a lot of responsibility on directors, and if they get it wrong, a lot of stakeholders are impacted including employees.

That said, a poorly run business needs to collapse so that more efficient businesses can move in and take the trade.
 
Looks like chippies may become a thing of the past...

Fish and chip shops are facing "extinction" amid rising costs, an industry expert has warned.

Some shops in the West say the soaring price of cod, sunflower oil and energy has left them struggling.

The National Federation of Fish Friers is urging the government to cut VAT and help shops with energy bills.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-62650572
 
The hospitality sector is likely to become one of the biggest victims of the cost of living crisis.
On the news last night a pub owner said how much he is struggling. He said a lot of the trade never returned after the Covid and now with all rising prices he is seeing less and less customers. Said he was trying to absorb all the extra costs but the energy price rises could be the thing that puts him out of business.
Restaurants are another. The costs of running the kitchens, the amount spent on electricity, increasing food prices and then staff all contributing to the problems.
Then the trickle down to the small independent shops on the high street who have been struggling for years. Hard times ahead for all.
 
i was up in portmadog in the good weather, wonderful place, but hardly a shop
or restaurant open after 6 pm, they cant get staff for love or money,,thank goodness the chippie was open in the main street , one of the reasons being, no one wants to work now, because of the covid payments ,its a sad state of affairs,
no pubs either seanie
 
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