SNACR

We had quite a lot of subscriptions for business related things paid by standing order. They've all just written asking us to stop the standing orders and setup new ones adjusted for the 15% vat rate. Have stopped them all and decided not to restart them, and I bet we're not the only ones. Another govt triumph.

I built up a chain of shops as well, didn't take out any loans or invest in property, still in the crap though.

Don't some councils have a fat people outreach person who organises subsidised gym membership for them. Given how squeezed council's revenues are I could see that being knocked on the head. I've never been too keen on gyms they're full of treadmills and smell of b.o. In Victorian times I think they were called workhouses and you didn't have to pay for the privilege

Cutting store numbers and disposing of leases is very difficult and expensive, probably got quite a lot of debt as the private equity spivs had been in at some point. Rents on outlet stores are pretty big, very few genuine bargains to be found there these days. I suspect like TK Maxx a lot of the stock there is made for clearance. Backloading genuine clearance stock is a nightmare and with the amount of outlet places about I doubt there'd actually be enough stock. Yep, dead right, it's impossible to say who will definitely survive, the ferocity of the downturn is such it's only possible to come up with best guesses.

No price is the only tool the bad retailer of tat has. There is always demand for necessities. Reducing the price of flatscreens will bring in customers for who it is now affordable. However, you have to be careful, if you half the price of something and don't sell more than double the amount it would have been better not to bother.

Ought to be Nintendo DS is apparently flying out and are in short (possibly engineered?) supply

Trade is at an exceptionally low level. Someone mentioned the last minute rush, that's ok, but for most retailers there is some sort of ceiling on just how much trade they can do in a day. Also interesting that for us gift voucher sales are very low, this could be a knock on from Woolies going bust.

Not sure I'd ever want to do any kind of enforcement job. I wonder if bailiffs engineer a similar mental construct about evicitng families at xmas or are they just too boneheaded.

Personally I can see it going that way here. Small businesses/self-employed have this as one of few advantages over big business. I suspect a difference between those that make it through and those that don't will be whether or not they arranged their own black economy bailout. If by doing this they're creating and sustaining jobs I'm not sure I've got that much of an issue with it.

Portfolio stuffed full of soon to be unlettable retail properties: http://www.kandahar.co.uk/portfolio.php Market Harborough is quite close to where he lives, looks like he was buying up the local town.

Just seen this article myself, guessed the money would've been for some other business venture outside Carphone. What a surprise it's property.

I'd never have anything over Range Rover/Merc/BMW unless you've really got spare money to burn.

A bird gave me one in the hand and I have to say the two in the bush were much better.

Surely you mean take it out for the odd weekend over a three year period plus trips to the dealer at a similar frequency.

I wonder if the finance companies will be prepared to negotiate on those balloon payments at the end of PCPs. Whose going to hand over the kind of loot after 3 years that these days would probably get you a year old average mileage example of the same model.

I always have any vehicles on HP over 36 months with 10% deposit down. Theres a clause on HP agreements that if you've paid more than half back you can just give the vehicle back to the finance company and walk away. I'm sure on my car, that's about half way through, I could hand it back and buy a newer one for less than the outstanding monthly repayments.

My guess would be that once you've advertised something for 6-8 weeks on the trot without shifting it perhaps dealers simultaneously decided it was an unnecessary overhead. I'd have thought Autotrader online generated a lot of leads, but I may be wrong. Most people in the motor trade I know still report it's dire, but they're franchised dealers. Possible that used car dealers have started slashing prices to get customers in.

He's got the Nevill Holt estate you mention and another large estate nearby in Brampton Ash. I think he has been trying to offload Brampton Ash, again doesn't really explain £100m. My guess would be although they're personal loans the money has perhaps been ploughed into his own business ventures away from CPW.

Redundancy lump sum.

Supply and demand is easily misleading. Vast majority of what we sell I'd be surprised if I've changed the prices in ten years. I doubt reducing the price would increase demand. During that period cost prices have increased and decreased and demand has waxed and waned. Obviously it works with say laptops, price comes down and it becomes affordable to a whole new swathe of people, still only works though if gross profit exceeds what it would have been if you left the price unaltered. There is a massive gulf between economics texbooks and the real world. Sometimes when demand falls prices go down to attract additional revenu, sometimes when demand falls prices rise.

Blacks would still be a top pick, a good guess

Don't worry I'm sure Chinese subsistence farmers will be falling over themselves to buy curling tongs and MEW their paddy field to splurge on a foot spa.

Argos have big toy market share and best placed to pick up Woolies leftovers. Not enough to save them from the fact they bought Homebase off the private equity spivs. Not content with that they went on a big expansion drive and bought a load of Focus stores. Weston-Super-Mare now has a choice of two Homebases, two Argos and a huge B&Q soon to open. On top of that the tourist trade will proabaly have vanished as the pier burnt down.

There is a third way?

IIRC they had a bit of an experiment with communism in Russia, any idea how that went?