What will collapse next....

[Will!]

13 hours ago, spyguy said:

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/04/iceland200904-2

Interesting read, thanks.

[Council estate capitalist]

17 hours ago, msi said:

"The administrators are expected to furlough the majority of the employees who keep their jobs under the government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme."

 

My understanding the JRS was a bridge to keep viable businesses in stasis until they could be restarted.  As much as I have sympathy, why are they even allowed to apply?

These businesses haven't been viable for years. The administrators have received several expressions of interest which is their basis for not making redundancies straight away.  Of course most of the interest will be from tyre kickers and will come to nothing but it benefits the administrators to drag it out. 

 

 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Deliveroo warning of collapse paves way for Amazon investment UK competition watchdog provisionally backs tech giant’s stake after courier firm warned it could go bust

Deliveroo warning of collapse paves way for Amazon investment UK competition watchdog provisionally backs tech giant’s stake after courier firm warned it could go bust

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/17/amazon-investment-in-deliveroo-cleared-by-uk-watchdog

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Arcadia Group may permanently shut down stores amid Covid-19 crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/18/arcadia-group-may-permanently-shut-down-stores-amid-covid-19-crisis

[The Preacherman]

Bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien is on brink of collapse putting 500 high street jobs at risk 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8236715/Bakery-chain-Le-Pain-Quotidien-brink-collapse-putting-500-high-street-jobs-risk.html

Ran out of dough... 

[what]

Crude Oil has collapsed.

[Orb]

13 minutes ago, The Preacherman said:

Bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien is on brink of collapse putting 500 high street jobs at risk 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8236715/Bakery-chain-Le-Pain-Quotidien-brink-collapse-putting-500-high-street-jobs-risk.html

Ran out of dough... 

Spooky that an anagram of its name is 'peneliquidation', meaning almost liquidation. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Orb

[The Preacherman]

 

 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Coronavirus: Primark goes from £650m sales a month to nothing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52365191

Should have gone to website makers ? 

[Trump Invective]

Kath Kidson a bricks and mortar gonner

[GregBowman]

14 hours ago, The Preacherman said:

 

 

I admire survivors or would you rather they go bust ?

[Take Me Back To London!]

22 hours ago, The Preacherman said:

 

 

Thanks for posting The Daily Mash news article, so nice to read those humerous articles, especially with all the COVID stuff going on.  I liked the other 2018 article about WH Smiths modernising by embracing video rentals, VHS and Betamax cassettes, stocking the latest titles such as - Beverley Hills Cop 2, Gremlins and Lethal Weapon.  ? Great stuff.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/wh-smith-confirms-it-will-survive-everything-like-retail-version-of-cockroach-20200417195597

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/wh-smith-to-modernise-by-doing-video-rentals-20180529173649

[Take Me Back To London!]

On 20/04/2020 at 20:32, what said:

Crude Oil has collapsed.

Wow, WTI has literally gone through the floor after dropping 55 dollars/148%, now at minus $37.63, and heading for the core of the Earth.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Take Me Back To London!

[Take Me Back To London!]

All 60 Cath Kidston shops now permantley closed.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-900-jobs-axed-as-pandemic-blamed-for-cath-kidston-collapse-11976585

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Take Me Back To London!

[cbathpc]

On 04/02/2020 at 08:31, cbathpc said:

Cath Kidston looks like its circling the drain to me. Definitely hits the expensive but low quality that people have been talking about

Points for me

[Social Justice League]

Virgin Atlantic is my next guess.......lol.

[regprentice]

12 hours ago, Take Me Back To London! said:

All 60 Cath Kidston shops now permantley closed.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-900-jobs-axed-as-pandemic-blamed-for-cath-kidston-collapse-11976585

 

The kind of brand that will get bought by Mike Ashley, in 6 months sport direct will be selling Cath Kidston branded polyester polo shirts. 

[regprentice]

On 20/04/2020 at 20:32, what said:

Crude Oil has collapsed.

 

13 hours ago, Take Me Back To London! said:

Wow, WTI has literally gone through the floor after dropping 55 dollars/148%, now at minus $37.63, and heading for the core of the Earth.

Interesting to try and understand the balance sheets of the large oil Majors. Their assets are largely retained earnings and plant and land that only has a value because of the value of the oil underneath it. If they are willing to leave oil rigs standing derelict in the North Sea rather than decommission them, then presumably the majority of plant doesn't even have a scrap value over and above the raw metal. 

It reminds me of the bank stress testing scenarios the BoE do, though I doubt anyone at any of the Oil Majors would have had the balls to suggest this sequence of events. For the first time in history the CEO of an oil major is looking at an electric future with a decline in oil use, prices hammered by a 70s style oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, a pandemic reducing oil use by 70-80% (?) which has caused all his oil storage facilities are full causing his product to have a market value that's negative. 

God knows how they would prepare a set of accounts if the oil price was negative on the final day of a reporting period. 

[Take Me Back To London!]

4 hours ago, cbathpc said:

Points for me

Bravo, that was a good call and as Bruce Forsyth would say "What do points mean? - prizes!"  It takes me back to 2007 when  it was called out here on this forum about Northern Rock Bank lending like there was no tomorrow and had built up a large book of subprime mortgages that was going to blow up in their faces and 6 months later it did.

The Great Northern Rock Bank Run of 2007.

 

[Take Me Back To London!]

3 hours ago, regprentice said:

 

Interesting to try and understand the balance sheets of the large oil Majors. Their assets are largely retained earnings and plant and land that only has a value because of the value of the oil underneath it. If they are willing to leave oil rigs standing derelict in the North Sea rather than decommission them, then presumably the majority of plant doesn't even have a scrap value over and above the raw metal. 

It reminds me of the bank stress testing scenarios the BoE do, though I doubt anyone at any of the Oil Majors would have had the balls to suggest this sequence of events. For the first time in history the CEO of an oil major is looking at an electric future with a decline in oil use, prices hammered by a 70s style oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, a pandemic reducing oil use by 70-80% (?) which has caused all his oil storage facilities are full causing his product to have a market value that's negative. 

God knows how they would prepare a set of accounts if the oil price was negative on the final day of a reporting period. 

Excellent points of the far reaching consequences to the oil industry.  Yes, this is massive, added as you say the electric future facing the oil companies. The North Sea oil rigs would have to be put into a regime of care & maintenace or they will become scrap which would be a massive enviromental scrapping cost liability, if done to current practices.  Oil rig supply vessels would have to laid up as well. Another knock on affect will be for the oil refineries that would have to contract production or close down with something like a 85% reduction in the demand for transport fuels for a start.

[Confusion of VIs]

13 minutes ago, Take Me Back To London! said:

Excellent points of the far reaching consequences to the oil industry.  Yes, this is massive, added as you say the electric future facing the oil companies. The North Sea oil rigs would have to be put into a regime of care & maintenace or they will become scrap which would be a massive enviromental scrapping cost liability, if done to current practices.  Oil rig supply vessels would have to laid up as well. Another knock on affect will be for the oil refineries that would have to contract production or close down with something like a 85% reduction in the demand for transport fuels for a start.

I thought there might be some use for free or nearly free oil in power generation but grid watch currently showing 0GW of the UK's power coming from oil (with solar at 30%), so I doubt there is much scope for that making a dent in the excess supply.

Even if things revert to some sort of normal by 2021, I doubt all of the demand will come back and with the large scale switch to renewables/electrification coming ever closer, it is clear that much of the currently known reserve will be left in the ground. 

How this affects the price could go either way, ration supply to keep the price as high as possible or a race to get it out of the ground and sell it for whatever you can get?   

  

[Riedquat]

7 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

I thought there might be some use for free or nearly free oil in power generation but grid watch currently showing 0GW of the UK's power coming from oil (with solar at 30%), so I doubt there is much scope for that making a dent in the excess supply.

How much oil powered generating capacity does the UK have?

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

7 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

How much oil powered generating capacity does the UK have?

Hard to get a number. We've decommisioned most of them, and the stuff that remains is mostly for standby.

The dial goes up to 5GW ! But my guess is that there is not much more than a couple of gw available.

Gas prices are OK though, we are pretty much at a 5 year low and are currently generating about a 1/5th of our power from that.

I like gridwatch. It's been really interesting watching the massive wind power ramp up. Must say I am also surprised by the amount of solar, but I guess that is what a sunny day does for you.

[Confusion of VIs]

41 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

How much oil powered generating capacity does the UK have?

The grid watch graphic, shows current generation as 0 of 5GW, but maybe this is historic as the average oil generation for the last year was 0GW. 

In short I don't think it offers a route for using much, if any, of the surplus.

 

[Warwick-Watcher]

2 hours ago, Riedquat said:

How much oil powered generating capacity does the UK have?

There used to be 2 large stations - one at Fawley (closed 2013), and the other at Pembroke (closed 1997), but they were 2,000MW each - which is half a Drax. Once oil got expensive (post 1973) they used coal mainly instead.