Caporegime
2010s zeitgeist - the irrelevance of the high street.
BHS to be liquidated - 11,000 jobs lost
- Thread starter scorza
- Start date
Damn... that's pretty scummy.
BHS has, in my eyes, been very old fashioned for years and never really made any attempt to modernise - I'm not really that surprised with it being liquidated - If I'm totally honest, I didn't even realise it was still around
Why would it be modernised when the captain of the ship is busy lining his own pokets?
That's why it's stagnated as a business, the head honcho was bleeding the company dry when he was supposed to be rebuilding it. M&s have managed to turn things around despiteqbeing a tired old brand.
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In his 20 bedroomed mansion, tucked up in a huge bed with smooth silky sheets. Yep I bet he's losing some sleep over that.
Well I would be, how could anyone live in such decadence, knowing that it's only because you've committed so many people to such hardship.
These people don't give a fluff. Ever.
Soldato
This.
Completly agree
Theft carries a sentence and this is multiple counts of it.
Couldn't give a flying F about knighthoods and this is why.
Really, you should be able to strip someone of their assets for this
This sort of business is ultimately doomed. But to raid the pension pot isn't on
During my time in Peterborough I've not shopped in the main city centre once.
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Aug 2009
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By that you mean the taxpayer, amiright?
I remember my mum buying some lampshades in there in the 1980's, I think thats the last time I went in one of them.
Soldato
Old news..
Debenhams I thought were doing ok, they sell brands other than their own such as Levi's which makes them a bit more upmarket than BHS and M&S - only reason I don't shop there is that there isn't one in my local high street (hopefully one will open in the space vacated by BHS but I doubt it). M&S menswear clothing is dire these days, such poor quality and they never seem to have my size, so agree that they are having problems.
It literally happened yesteday, when I made the OP. Are you confusing administration with liquidation by any chance?
Caporegime
Fixed that for you.
Soldato
Soldato
He has not raised the pension fund. That's what Robert Maxwell did.
What has happened is that the BHS pension fund has not had sufficient funding to keep up with its future liabilities. The same outcome, more or less, but there's a distinct difference. Raiding the pension fund suggests taking money out of it - it just wasn't funded enough.
There's lots of talk about the £570 odd million pension fund deficit today. What nobody's talking about is the level of pension fund deficit when BHS was last sold. It was a fraction of that amount. The situation has worsened significantly under the current owners.
They have an app that supports Apple Pay which is unusual for a UK retailer!
Is that the fault of 90% of workers who lost their jobs though?
Soldato
where will old people get their velour jumpers from now?
Philip Green and Co took money out of the business when it was doing very well in the early 00s. From what I understand, when the 2007/2008 recession hit, the pension fund took a massive hit because of its massive exposure to equities. This meant that decently provisioned fund now had a massive short fall. In the intervening years, because of the struggles of BHS as a business it's not made enough money to make up that shortfall.
He's not literally taken the pension fund and paid himself money from it. But you could attribute the failure of BHS largely down to a lack of investment and taking money out of the business, so whilst the high street *is* challenging, if it had been able to move with the times it could have weathered the storm.
You could also argue that Philip Green's team should have done greater due diligence before offloading the business for the token sum of £1 to a group that have paid themselves handsomely over this past year, but have failed to do anything with the business itself and lack sufficient working capital to operate the business.
Have any of the directors failed in their fiduciary duties during this time? It's very possible in my mind.
He's not literally taken the pension fund and paid himself money from it. But you could attribute the failure of BHS largely down to a lack of investment and taking money out of the business, so whilst the high street *is* challenging, if it had been able to move with the times it could have weathered the storm.
You could also argue that Philip Green's team should have done greater due diligence before offloading the business for the token sum of £1 to a group that have paid themselves handsomely over this past year, but have failed to do anything with the business itself and lack sufficient working capital to operate the business.
Have any of the directors failed in their fiduciary duties during this time? It's very possible in my mind.