Companies in Administration/Bankruptcy Thread

[d.boyd1uk]

website is only showing dvd, mobiles, books, video games and music, everything else has dissapeared

Woolworths

[Alan b]

They have halted all online toy sales:

http://www.toysandplaythings.co.uk/n...ils.php?ID=290

[Guest 48749]

...and now it's down.

"Our site is currently undergoing some essential maintenance.

We apologise for any inconvenience and promise to return as soon as we can.

In the meantime why not visit one of our partner sites."

[KennyVader]

You would think they'd have remembered to update the site bookmark / home page "title" tags then. It's still

Buy Childrens Cheap Toys, gifts, garden furniture & kids outdoor toys - Woolworths.co.uk

... NONE of which they sell now.

[Guest 66640]

Woolworths is VERY close to administration after a failed sale for £1 fell through. That's right £1 could of bought you Woolies, but just like most of the stuff they sell the deal was tat. I doubt there really is a "Woolies" anyway and any property or assets will have been raped long ago by the usual money men.

It will be a shame if the name disappears but I'm sure someone will suck some more business from it. To be honest with young and potentially good businesses going out of business it'll be no loss to see a buisness that should of shut its doors 5 years ago go under.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ale-talks.html

[bigman]

Shares in Woolies now suspended on stock market.

Woolies

[KennyVader]

shares suspended this morning

[Guest 66640]

Feel sorry for the staff (my great aunt worked there for 30+ years) this morning.

The good news is there is someone interested (he offered them £50m 3 months ago) but it depends what the current managers have been doing with their assets in the last few weeks. I'm hoping they're good people but it's unlikely and they're more interested in their own pockets.

From what I've been reading (and nothing is really known about these things until the accounts are made public) there are a lot of good assets but if they're so good why'd the sale for £1 fall through?

I love these old shops but this isn't the real 'Woolies' as that was sold decades ago and moved around and now has all sorts of strange people owning shares in it. None of them wholly own it (or own enough) which is why I assume the £1 sale fell through.

Next for the chop: WHSmith

It's all down to the banks for the moment and since they have our money I'd hope they'd delay killing off too many brands.

[Soprano]

Woolworths and WHS are two shops which are no longer needed. Both don't really know what they specialise in and cannot compete with supermarkets when selling dvds/cds. They are both out of touch with reality. My local Woolworths sells Halo 3 for £39.99.

I won't sorry to see the shops close, but do pity anyone who loses their job.

[mjb1975]

Well, I can't remember the last time I shopped in a Smiths or Woolies - yonks ago. However, both near work in London and near home, the local Post Office branch has been (fairly recently) housed within WHSmiths so that'd be a whole other hornets nest of a problem if Smiths went under.

[discodel]

Anybody any ideas if online orders are still being fulfilled?

[Guest 22574]

i thought smiths were doing ok (airports and train stations helping profits a lot - no wonder at those prices).

[hookbeak]

Smiths and Woolworths are the two biggest stores in the small town i live in (and always very busy), it'll be pretty devastating to the high street here if one or either of them went under.

[Ricinus]

They could have saved a fortune if they just turned down the heating in the Coventry branch a few degrees. It is scorching in there.

[BigH]

shame it's happening now - I really liked their Christmas TV commercials

[Guest 66640]

As a mate of mine once said "If they shut all the shops overnight would anyone notice it was missing from the high street". Except the staff, no.

Apart from those enormous cola bottles in Woolies I think both shops will disappear. It happened to John Menzies in Scotland (and they were massive) but like John Menzies the names will continue in some form as they are 'high street' names. It's not fair to completely blame the businesses by saying they're out of touch, because almost all high street shops are out of touch. They have no ******* clue in fact. Woolies and WHS do own profitable businesses within their groups but those will be cherry-picked.

I think Woolworths could come back and be just a seller of audio/video/gaming. I think they are the UK's largest wholesaler (ie their products are sold to Play.com etc etc) so it's not like they don't have that potential. They need to shut a lot of stores though.

As for WHS, lost cause I'd say except for newspapers and there ain't much in that.

I just hope the staff don't read the bad news on the Web and they're kept well informed. Not a nice place to be at the mo.

[KennyVader]

Just announced insolvency.

[Guest 22574]

First time i'd bought anything from them in years was yesterday, got a few bargains due to them selling stuff off cheap but can see why they were in trouble. no doubt the company who was interested is circling around like a vulture and knew this was better value for them as they wont have to cover all their debt which might cause a domino effect...

oh and smiths arent in trouble, slow down yes but not really anything like woolies. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54d93e56-b...0779fd18c.html

[SAS]

damn woolies have been really good recently, lots of deals on 360 games and dvd's in my local store. Shame to see them go.

[d.boyd1uk]

Hope they can save 30,000 jobs.

can the goverment take them over, just like northern rock?