Sports Direct launches takeover bid for Game

The_Abyss said:
The gun that Mike Ashley is planning to hold to the High Street landlords is gradually getting bigger and bigger...
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TBH the long term outlook for these companies really is beating down the rents and concentrating as much of them as possible onto the same rental footprint (or moving smaller rented sites onto shared owned ones) - especially where they can pair up a larger and smaller company to help reduce costs and increase footfall.

Any other model really has a far lesser chance of surviving long term with current trends.
 
Jokester said:
Not just landlords, but government/councils as well with business rates.
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business rates are already a joke. it's a tax to be in business but only if you have a commercial premises.

as in you don't get anything for the £20K a year you pay in rates. you don't get any bins uplifted you need to pay for that on top of rates. you don't get water / sewerage services that is separate, etc.

rates should be abolished business's pay enough tax as it is. and rates are killing the high street for no reason what so ever.
 
And where do you propose councils find a not-insignificant chunk of their budget? Unless the High Street rapidly expands (lol ok) after rates disappearing, all councils would be in severe deficit.
 
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All these failing businesses Mr Ashley is buying up - He must know something that will make him some money in it in the end...

Game certainly has an expiration date - I can't believe they still have stores open honestly...
 
StriderX said:
And where do you propose councils find a third of their budget? Unless the High Street rapidly expands (lol ok) after rates disappearing, all councils would be in severe deficit.
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it's money just being wasted anyway. if all the shops go under. that is jobs gone (people with less money) and less taxes being paid directly and indirectly by the business and their employees.

take town centres. 50-75% of shops lying empty. what is the point in taxing the remaining 25-50% to death?

they will soon have 2 or 3 shops open paying them buttons the more shops shut down. so something has to give.

if you owned say venue which was ticketed. would you rather sell tickets at £1000 each and get 2 people turn up or sell them at £5 each and get 2,000 people turn up? based upon the fact those 2,000 people will all now be drinking and eating at your venue too.

they tried to open a posh nightclub up in glasgow. it worked as it was new. it died within 2 years. people weren't willing to pay £20 to walk in when the club around the corner was free or a fiver or a tenner max. corinthian has stayed open but that's because it truly is upmarket.

there is a price for everything and rates right now are a joke and have been for the past 15 years. if they don't decrease them drastically they won't have anything coming in from rates. business's will just keep on closing.
 
I'd rather unsustainable businesses die faster frankly, if the current path isn't enough for businesses to change their models, then they dont deserve it.

It sucks for the niche shops, local/growing startups that can't survive long enough to succeed, but I'm frankly tired of seeing horrifically out of touch businesses that dont realise it's not the 1970s anymore.
 
I like Game, my local store - Newcastle-under-Lyme - is staffed by knowledgeable and friendly staff, unfortunately though as far as PC gaming is concerned they have next to nothing and what they do have is Steam / Origin credit vouchers or keys to download whatever but at higher prices than say CD Keys for example.

I used to go in frequently because my ex’s lad had an X-Box & PS4 and for him they are great, especially if your after older titles for a song.

Now we’ve split though I doubt I’ll be in again bar to say hi to the lads in there who I’ve got to know well which is a shame.

Game is dead to me as a PC gamer, if the next generation of consoles go digital download (which I suspect is a given eventually) then Games days are numbered, I’m surprised at Ashley to a degree, he’s flogged a dead horse with Debenhams already, I just fail to see the long term viability of Game alas.
 
Not surprising at all, he probably realised awhile ago that if he wanted to push for a rates change he'd need to appear like someone that had significant leverage, though in reality he still has no hand to play.

As it is basically,

Blackmail the council/government-at-large or else he'll leave or capitulation.

The former means he loses anyway, not sure what he's doing honestly.
 
StriderX said:
Not surprising at all, he probably realised awhile ago that if he wanted to push for a rates change he'd need to appear like someone that had significant leverage, though in reality he still has no hand to play.

As it is basically,

Blackmail the council/government-at-large or else he'll leave or capitulation.

The former means he loses anyway, not sure what he's doing honestly.
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He only needs to close the high street down in one town for everyone else to get the message.
 
Finally, revenge for my failed job interview 18 years ago. Perish, Game!

They set a deckchair up in the interview room to purposely collapse under me, for what I believe was a competence test to gauge my reaction to it. Then it collapsed again.

Also, one of their staff once rudely turned off a demo console I was playing on without a word of warning. Die in a fire, blue-suited ********!
 
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Psycho Sonny said:
take town centres. 50-75% of shops lying empty. what is the point in taxing the remaining 25-50% to death?
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What town centres do you go to?!?

My home town has zero empty shops, and other towns local to me probably have a couple of empty units maximum.
 
I'm assuming he's banking on some sort of

"Oh my god, our town centre's are derelict, cheap rents and government grants ahoy!"

If not, this buying the highstreet really doesn't make sense
 
Marky said:
All these failing businesses Mr Ashley is buying up - He must know something that will make him some money in it in the end...

Game certainly has an expiration date - I can't believe they still have stores open honestly...
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He is getting hold of their supply network and online stores, he can take that whole business and place it in a corner of his larger stores and close all the Game stores. Its the very thing game did to all their competitors in the late 90s early 00s. Whole business, minus the rent, rates and a fraction of the staff.
 
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