Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008
This is a real worry - he may nationalise them!
Retail week: Mandelson intervenes in Woolworths crisis
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has intervened to attempt to save variety store group Woolworths.
It is understood that Mandelson's office called in Woolworths' lenders – which include Burdale and GMAC - for an emergency meeting yesterday as the retailer tottered on the brink of administration.
Posted by wdbeast @ 02:49 PM (612 views) Add Comment
12 Comments
- If you do not have an admin password leave the password field blank.
- If you would like to request a password allowing you to add comments and blog news articles without needing each one approved manually, send an e-mail to the webmaster.
- Your email address is required so we can verify that the comment is genuine. It will not be posted anywhere on the site, will be stored confidentially by us and never given out to any third party.
- Please note that any viewpoints published here as comments are user's views and not the views of HousePriceCrash.co.uk.
- Please adhere to the Guidelines
1. mark said...
did anyone notice the BBC bought some more of woolies for a nice sum of tax payers money............back door stuff....
2. fahrenheit451 said...
This just shows how an incompetent government can wreak havoc with our economy. Every time they do something just for the sake of it and without good cause, they cause chaos.
Through epic mismanagement / tinkering with the base rates they have caused the demise of the bank, now they want to kill off the retail sector.
Whoever thought that “in practice” you could bounce the base rates around from 1% to 7% and subsequently NOT actually damage the economy was pitifully short sighted. Any idi0t knows that if you take a loan at, say 1%, you will get as much as you can for your business, but if another idi0t randomly changes your interest payments to 7%, you will go bankrupt and everyone will join the dole queue.
Now they are asking the shops to waste valuable resources of time people and money, to change all the price tags ‘cause another idi0t has a bright idea.
No wonder Woolworths, a staple of the high street with its original “Everything under £1” philosophy is being driven to the wall. Who goes next, BHS, Mothercare, Boots, or even WHSmiths?
3. fjcruiser said...
It is very worrying when a government start to meddle the running of business. Woolies may have been an icon but it is on the verge of bankrupcy because it is fundamentally unsound.It should not survive. NULabour is back with its old socialist rhetoric of let's nationalise any failing business. Back to the 70s folks!
4. whostolemyendowment said...
Industry / manufacturing and mining were allowed to wither sometime ago, with no support from Labour - who carried on in the same vein as the Tories....now more recently the three pillars of Thatcherism finance, service & retail sectors....have come under severe strain....what now for UK PLC? Guess we will have to survive on tourism...'Roll up roll up, come n see the Queen in her rent free big house!....or pop music exports and Scotch whisky?
See article in
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23592749-details/Woolies+shares+are+suspended+and+MFI+fights+for+survival/article.do
5. drewster said...
Why does Mandelson, or indeed anyone in government, care about Woolworths? The company was in trouble long before the crunch began. If it goes then a few jobs will be lost but then those workers will be freed to work in more productive sectors of the economy. Consumers are tapped out, the retail sector has to shrink, and Woolies' inability to cope indicates that it should be part of that shrinking process.
6. wdbeast said...
Uk retail (and many other areas of commerce) is dominated by PLCs that are run by directors that are totally short term in their planning and investment.
They are driven by bonus schemes that reward them in line with these short term attitudes.
Many are laiden with massive debt, often having been bought and then re-floated by private equity groups, e.g. Debenhams has £1bn debt.
Many must to go bust to let the industry reinvent itself.
At least we will still have John Lewis and Wilkinsons to shop at.
7. drewster said...
wdbeast, note that John Lewis (including Waitrose) is a partnership owned by its employees. The Co-op is also the same. Also Nationwide is owned by its members, as are all building societies. Maybe in the next few years we'll see a return to the cooperative movement.
8. japanese uncle said...
Woolworth must not have anything to do with this man.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084072/Mandelsons-family-history--claim-uncrowned-King-Poland.html
9. japanese uncle said...
I mean this man is related to the House of Recession by blood.
10. another alan said...
Woolworths is shit! That's part of their problem. It does a lot of things badly.
11. whostolemyendowment said...
From Wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelson
MFI has gone into administration www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=297&storycode=3128473&c=1
Woolies www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=297&storycode=3128452
12. whostolemyendowment said...
Sorry ment to add...
Hilco, possible buyer of Woolies?..... www.hilcouk.com {guess they will be busy....not just with Woolies}.
They missed off Redundancy in the many Re'sss