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Yesterday, news of Woolworths imminent departure from the high street leaked out.
Another British institution bites the dust, we all thought, how sad. Except it wasn’t quite like that at Universal music.
A lorry had been sent out that morning with 200,000 copies of Take That’s new album to fill the shelves of all the Woolworths shops in the South East.
Cue frantic phone calls to get the lorry to turn around, before the CDs got to the bankrupt chain and possibly lost forever.
Finally, the driver was located and the Take That CDs were saved.
I live in a small market town. Our woolworths closed down 2 weeks ago. It will be greatly missed. It is now set to become a Tescos. On our small High Street we will now have a Spar, Sainsburies and a Tescos. We do not have any Phone Shops in our town, nor any shops were we could buy sensibly priced school uniforms or in fact any childrens clothes. We do not have a music shop or an electrical shop. It was also the only shop in town that sold childrens toys
On the last day of trading it was selling most of its goods for 20p and had been bringing in goods from several other woolworths that were closing down, for 2 weeks
Our town has a high elderly population who relied on woolworths for many things. Its like the end of an era and is terribly sad.Sad, yes it is. However it was also inevitable. The plain fact is that our dear old lovable ‘Woolies’ had amassed some £380 MILLION in debts. Their cash-flow was shot to ribbons. Their corporate debts were secured against properties etc that had dramatically reduced in value over time. Their management practices left a lot to be desired.
The only way they could survive (and probably rack up even greater corporate debts) was if the Banks continued to pour in more money on top of the huge sums that had already been lent.
Yes it’s a shame that they had to go into Administration; get broken up and sold off …. but this is the inevitable result of poor management and even worse decision making. They have been an accident waiting to happen for a long time now and their demise hasn’t come as too much of a surprise to many financially aware businessmen.
woolies isnt coming to a total end. yes the admin is going in today, but there will be some shops still remaining open.
@blackkettle wrote:
woolies isnt coming to a total end. yes the admin is going in today, but there will be some shops still remaining open.
Yes they will remain open …. but only for a little while. The company is doomed and all the staff WILL lose their jobs.
The Administrative Receiver, acting on behalf of the appointing creditor(s), has an obligation to realise the assets of the failed company so as to achieve a maximum return for the creditors
This means that they have the power to trade the company on, so as to arrange for an orderly disposal of its assets – namely all the shop and warehouse stock that Woolies holds. They will also attempt to break up the company into its component parts and sell them off to the highest bidder…… assuming that one can be found.
If they simply shut all the shops right now, they would be left with a mountain of virtually worthless stock which they would be unable to sell, and the creditors would get little if any of their money back.
As it is, all the unpaid suppliers (of the goods that the shops are now selling) will NOT be paid for those goods – unless they have an ROT clause in their contract with Woolies. The cash received will instead go to the secured creditors.
But BEWARE. If you are thinking of picking up a bargain you will find that any warranty or guarantee will be null and void as soon as the company is either sold off or goes into Liquidation (probably just after Christmas / New Year).
By all means pick over the corpse and see if you can find a bargain, but if what you buy breaks – you will be on your own.
A friend of mine had bought Wollies vouchers for her grandkids for Christmas pressies and when she went in today to ask if they were still okay was told to spend them quick in the next 7 days as no refunds given………………..naughty !!!! :? :? :? :?
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