What will collapse next....

[Will!]

Finablr, owner of Travelex

The Register: The Six Million Dollar Scam: London cops probe Travelex cyber-ransacking amid reports of £m ransomware demand, wide-open VPN server holes

From the comments:

Quote

Anonymous Coward

lack of investment 

This is not a new problem for Travelex. This is years of neglect. In a former job I was a hiring manager for a security department. We had one vacancy. Every single person from the local Travelex I.T. team applied for the role and every single one told the same story during interview of the lack if I.T. Security investment within the company. It's been a car crash waiting to happen for years.

I imagine senior management will pull the same old "we're the victims" like TalkTalk and Vodafone have done previously. We can only hope they're hit with a massive GDPR fine as a warning to others.

 

[regprentice]

6 hours ago, Will! said:

Finablr, owner of Travelex

The Register: The Six Million Dollar Scam: London cops probe Travelex cyber-ransacking amid reports of £m ransomware demand, wide-open VPN server holes

From the comments:

 

I can't see finablr going bust on 1.5bn of revenue, though I've struggled to find their profit figure, but ive read that they've been trying to list Travelex on the ftse100. This will have knackered those plans. I'd imagine finablr were looking for cash from a flotation that they could then gouge out of travelex. 

Apparently Travelex are already jacked up on debt with a lot of restrictive covenants, it doesn't look like they have the cash to hand to pay £3mn in ransom and they've now stitched up the banks they do FX for - RBS, lloyds, tsb, tesco,  sainsbury's. Its hard to see them staying afloat.

[spyguy]

24 minutes ago, regprentice said:

I can't see finablr going bust on 1.5bn of revenue, though I've struggled to find their profit figure, but ive read that they've been trying to list Travelex on the ftse100. This will have knackered those plans. I'd imagine finablr were looking for cash from a flotation that they could then gouge out of travelex. 

Apparently Travelex are already jacked up on debt with a lot of restrictive covenants, it doesn't look like they have the cash to hand to pay £3mn in ransom and they've now stitched up the banks they do FX for - RBS, lloyds, tsb, tesco,  sainsbury's. Its hard to see them staying afloat.

They might have 1.5bln of revenue but its profit that matter.

My guess is the group is a house of cards.

[GregBowman]

On 10/01/2020 at 15:23, Social Justice League said:

Far too many rubbish businesses selling goods and services that no one actually wants.

OK in the good old days of 'everyone's rich, give me another credit card', but now that most consumers are completely tapped out and bust, it's bankrupt time for many of these Chinese tat merchants.

David Bewick who commentates on the radio generally in financial spots ( have to admit I am a sucker for his plummy accent because generally talking sense)

Was musing only this morning that people have changed their spending habits his words were ‘ people used to spend money on high end things but now you can see a bloke in an old t shirt but he has 3 expensive holidays a year’  people increasingly want experiences not things he said he thought that was a bigger driver in the run down of the high st’s than the even the Amazon effect - apparently when all totted up 5000 units will have closed this year 

[spyguy]

5 hours ago, GregBowman said:

David Bewick who commentates on the radio generally in financial spots ( have to admit I am a sucker for his plummy accent because generally talking sense)

Was musing only this morning that people have changed their spending habits his words were ‘ people used to spend money on high end things but now you can see a bloke in an old t shirt but he has 3 expensive holidays a year’  people increasingly want experiences not things he said he thought that was a bigger driver in the run down of the high st’s than the even the Amazon effect - apparently when all totted up 5000 units will have closed this year 

Things change. Always have. Always will.

What I find really annoying about the ', ban the internet!!!!! shops are closing' is that UK retial has gone thru many changes over since WW2.

Years ago (50s) my granddad used to run a shop, which youd find in towns n cities up n down the land. These pretty much all shut when supermarkets were invented inthe 60s.70s and a wave of immigrants came over and were prepared to run shops 7til11. rather than 8til5.

By the 80s,, all the regional department stores were bought up and replaced by national chains.

Shopping as leisure activity -as some like to call it - only started in the mid 80s.

Small, local shops were replaced by larger, national operators who were more effiecient and convenient.

Now, national operators are being shutdown by the internet, which is more effecient and convenient.

Personally, I *hate* shopping - the browsing, the 'do you have it in xx size' Hell.

Besides, growign up in a village, 2h from a large shopping areas, I was alread buyign stuff remotely and getting it posted to me.

 

 

[regprentice]

6 hours ago, GregBowman said:

David Bewick who commentates on the radio generally in financial spots ( have to admit I am a sucker for his plummy accent because generally talking sense)

Was musing only this morning that people have changed their spending habits his words were ‘ people used to spend money on high end things but now you can see a bloke in an old t shirt but he has 3 expensive holidays a year’  people increasingly want experiences not things he said he thought that was a bigger driver in the run down of the high st’s than the even the Amazon effect - apparently when all totted up 5000 units will have closed this year 

Ive heard that on the business news on R4 last year. They seemed to be talking more about businesses attracting customers by adding an 'experience' element. The example that was given was a pub in London that was also a darts school. I think there is a silent majority of customers who want a pub to be a pub, not a library, flower arranging centre etc. 

I hadn't taken 'experiences' to mean holidays, and I thought foreign holidays were in a down turn as well. 

[winkie]

I would agree with experiences being more in vouge than owning things such as expensive clothes and kitchens or even consuming expensive food in staged settings.....taking a break from day to day living will always be popular and more people are designing their own holiday experiences, booking tickets to places, events and attractions all over the world from home or office online.....not wanting to join the tourist trail or the we do it all for you hotels or boats.....other popular experiences are social clubs where like minded people with similar interests can meet face-to-face talking and taking part in activities they are interested in.....anything from walking clubs, book clubs, gardening clubs, crafts, singing, dancing or exercising, even debating clubs......other popular activities are live music venues, comedy clubs......so to recap, real people visiting real places, meeting real people, doing real things in natural environments....cutting out the agents.?

Edited January 12, 2020 by winkie

[GregBowman]

13 hours ago, regprentice said:

Ive heard that on the business news on R4 last year. They seemed to be talking more about businesses attracting customers by adding an 'experience' element. The example that was given was a pub in London that was also a darts school. I think there is a silent majority of customers who want a pub to be a pub, not a library, flower arranging centre etc. 

I hadn't taken 'experiences' to mean holidays, and I thought foreign holidays were in a down turn as well. 

Package holidays are down - flights on the increase people have just unbundled the experience 

re pubs drinking per se is down so imho there probably is a silent group who like old fashioned pubs ( I don’t mean decent boozers but the run of the mill local that was part of our lives in the 70,s, 80’s and 90’s)

But probably the minority now imho - people’s tastes just have got more sophisticated if they go to a pub at all 

[onlooker]

Beales on the brink:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51083396

Shame, I quite like the local Beales dept store. I would go more often but it is in the next town about 5 miles away.

The department store model is dead.

[onlooker]

Flybe on the brink of collapse as well:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/flybe-collapse-trouble-administration-flight-bankrupt-update-today-a9280916.html

[Si1]

58 minutes ago, onlooker said:

.

The department store model is dead.

Indeed. I can't think of anything more disruptable by online shopping and clicks n bricks

[regprentice]

7 hours ago, onlooker said:

Flybe on the brink of collapse as well:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/flybe-collapse-trouble-administration-flight-bankrupt-update-today-a9280916.html

Quite surprised by this as they were partially bailed out by virgin and were going to rebrand from 'flybe' to 'virgin connect'. 

I know stobart are in trouble and some of the original bailout came from stobarts air division so perhaps that has fallen through leaving a hole to plug. 

[Jimmyjammy001]

The Virgin consortium Want flybe to go bankrupt then they can start fresh, no debt, no paying off staff, no end of lease early repayment charges on aircraft, can set up the routes that they want under their terms and the London Heathrow slots are worth alot of money that flybe currently have, should find out tomorrow if they are going bankrupt or not, government should not help a failing business out, it will need the same help again next year and then the year after that. Just wish the government would stop interfering with the housing market

[Si1]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/major-merseyside-bus-company-ceases-17625062?fbclid=IwAR084drb_fq6UEuDe4q5Ob1bCo9CTRWXHcrCMbFeGdl9_IcONwS1ta7ZPJE

 

[Will!]

On 11/01/2020 at 23:35, spyguy said:

My guess is the group is a house of cards.

Looks that way.  Share price down a further 25% today on this news.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/finablr-plc--fin-/rns/pdmr-notification/202001241000348631A/

Travelex website still down.

[Si1]

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-burger-chain-collapses-129-17618963

 

[Now or never]

Not completely off topic, but usually see a lot of news articles/propaganda this time of year cheering the unexpected turnaround of Christmas sales. Not seen any reporting of this kind so far this year, I’m thinking this is going to be a really bad year for business.

[jimmy2x3]

fubar owner of housepricecrash.   this site has been dying for years. i remember when it first started before fubar owned it and was set up as a sort of protest forum. a topic wouldnt last on the first page for longer than a minute unless it go posts on it. now topics with 3 posts linger on the front page for days. 

 

maybe this is a good thing as many said then the crash will happen when no-one cares anymore. 

 

or maybe ttrtr  was right and we have all falling into dispair

[Buzzardo2]

4 minutes ago, jimmy2x3 said:

fubar owner of housepricecrash.   this site has been dying for years. i remember when it first started before fubar owned it and was set up as a sort of protest forum. a topic wouldnt last on the first page for longer than a minute unless it go posts on it. now topics with 3 posts linger on the front page for days.

Totally agree. Hardly bother to sign on here any more - it no longer has anything to do with House Prices, or even anything useful to do with the Economy.

 

It's now just a total clickbaitfest, of the type the Mail would be proud of. An endless, non-intellectual clusterw@nk where b3ll3nds like Slawek and "Brew Spanner" revel in the prospect of the entire country going to ratsh!t, and millions being impacted by well-documented economic headwinds that have absolutely feck-all to to with Brexit, just so that in their sad little "ooh, let's spend all Saturday rubbing ourselves off with Monsieur ClusterF**k" worlds they can feel they were right after all. What a sad and obnoxious bunch of Troll scrotums!!

 

Can't help thinking said "Brew Spanner" would be better off with his "I'm-alright-jack" Boomer mates over on www.property118.com - his "pull up the drawbridge, now i've made it" mindset seems much better suited over there.

 

In thh meantime, I used to check in here several times a day to find out what was going on. Nowadays, I probably pop over a couple of times a week to check there's nothing I'm missing, then f**k right off again to somewhere waaay more interesting. See ya later, Fubra. You f**ked this place over good and proper in the interests of some short time clickbait profits!!!!

[longgone]

52 minutes ago, Buzzardo2 said:

Totally agree. Hardly bother to sign on here any more - it no longer has anything to do with House Prices, or even anything useful to do with the Economy.

 

It's now just a total clickbaitfest, of the type the Mail would be proud of. An endless, non-intellectual clusterw@nk where b3ll3nds like Slawek and "Brew Spanner" revel in the prospect of the entire country going to ratsh!t, and millions being impacted by well-documented economic headwinds that have absolutely feck-all to to with Brexit, just so that in their sad little "ooh, let's spend all Saturday rubbing ourselves off with Monsieur ClusterF**k" worlds they can feel they were right after all. What a sad and obnoxious bunch of Troll scrotums!!

 

Can't help thinking said "Brew Spanner" would be better off with his "I'm-alright-jack" Boomer mates over on www.property118.com - his "pull up the drawbridge, now i've made it" mindset seems much better suited over there.

 

In thh meantime, I used to check in here several times a day to find out what was going on. Nowadays, I probably pop over a couple of times a week to check there's nothing I'm missing, then f**k right off again to somewhere waaay more interesting. See ya later, Fubra. You f**ked this place over good and proper in the interests of some short time clickbait profits!!!!

Lol too right

If you read the posts most members already have a house and are well heeled. It just a boast fest with the average plebs the butt of the joke with a thin veneer of giving a chit about house pricea and multiple graph posting wankk fests

None of the fancy graphs have any bearing on houses down south anyway HTB doubled prices down south no phucking graph needed.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Wait till the 2nd collapse comes... 

[Jolly Roger]

On 10/01/2020 at 09:50, regprentice said:

Probably a little too soon to judge the new management as they only really got their feet under the table in october,  but anecdotally there is still a mass of super dry stuff out there being discounted, particularly through their own ebay store outlet which is the main thing they need to reverse. 

In my view Superdry is like one of those brands that gets bought by sports direct then gutted - say kangol. It'll be a long haul to get back to where it used to be as it's lost a lot of 'premium' customers who see the brand as 'chavvy' but a lot of its current customer base see it as a cheap fashion brand. They now need something as iconic as their multilayer jackets were, but which looks significantly different so that people can tell if you are wearing 'new' super dry or 'old' superdry at a glance. Not impossible but a big ask.... Think they are going the way of other brands like bench. 

Agreed.  I've said as much in other threads here before but Superdry is an attempt to take a decade (plus)-old fad and make it an enduring business.  I remember back in 2008 a friend of a friend buying a "Brad" men's leather jacket to encouraging comments in the pub...now if you wear a hoodie with kanji characters on the sleeve you look like your nan bought you it for Christmas or you have an old Peacocks knock-off.  How can you reinvent a brand that is cemented in a very particular style at a specific point in time?

Same with Jack Wills - the preppy New England Ivy League style aimed at a narrow age range is only sustainable if the conveyor belt of young people coming into that age range continue to agree that the aesthetic is desirable - if not then poof goes your core market.

[reddog]

5 hours ago, Jolly Roger said:

 

Same with Jack Wills - the preppy New England Ivy League style aimed at a narrow age range is only sustainable if the conveyor belt of young people coming into that age range continue to agree that the aesthetic is desirable - if not then poof goes your core market.

Jack Wills already went bust.  Mike Ashley is now the proud owner.

 

So the preppy look may soon be coming to Sports Direct!!

 

I think we hit peak Superdry quite sometime ago.

 

The amazing thinking to me is how some of these brands can go from nothing, to a shop on every high street in a few years.  Where as traditionally a brand would take decades to achieve that growth.  But it's all down to cheap money.

 

I guess for these fade brands the only answer is to make the money while you can, then do a prepack sale to Mike Ashley, who will just add it to his portfolio of legacy brands

Edited January 26, 2020 by reddog

[nothernsoul]

Decades ago, clothing brands built their reputation on quality. Clarkes shoes for example(like everything else their quality has dramatically declined) . Now everything is outsourced as cheaply as possible to asia, companies make their money by customers being willing to literally pay for the brand name itself. This appeals to companies because they can make profits from cheaply manufactured goods. 

The down side, now fashion is disposable, fickle customers are quicker to drop a brand and move on to something else. 

[stop_the_craziness]

10 hours ago, reddog said:

I think we hit peak Superdry quite sometime ago.

I bought a Superdry long sleeve top for a massive discount on ASOS recently.  I am the ultimate "anti-brand" person, I just liked the colour an it was cheap.

Anyone young and hip seeing me wearing their stuff would immediately go home and set fire to anything Super-dry in their wardrobe.

If people like me are wearing it, then I agree we are WAY beyond peak.