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After my experiences I wouldn't be sorry to see the Vue cinema chain close down. I had £82.45 worth of advance tickets booked for live relays from Covent Garden and the New York Met when the lockdown was announced. I rang Vue's customer service number (quite hard to find) and after 15 minutes on hold gave my details and was assured that my credit card would be refunded soon. That was in late March, and I still haven't had any money back. Today, the first day our local Vue reopened, I tried to get a refund over the counter, but was told that was not possible. I've just tried the customer service number again, held for 5 minutes, and then gave up. I won't be going again, and hope the scoundrels go bankrupt.
And if they do, as an unsecured creditor you’ll get a pittance in the pound if you’re lucky. Maybe a fiver, with which you could go to a different cinema and get an ounce of pick and mix
After my experiences I wouldn't be sorry to see the Vue cinema chain close down. I had £82.45 worth of advance tickets booked for live relays from Covent Garden and the New York Met when the lockdown was announced. I rang Vue's customer service number (quite hard to find) and after 15 minutes on hold gave my details and was assured that my credit card would be refunded soon. That was in late March, and I still haven't had any money back. Today, the first day our local Vue reopened, I tried to get a refund over the counter, but was told that was not possible. I've just tried the customer service number again, held for 5 minutes, and then gave up. I won't be going again, and hope the scoundrels go bankrupt.
I wouldn’t put it past Ashley to have done it mainly to get back at Dave “did I ever mention I played in the FA cup final and broke my leg?” Whelan. He hates him
But that aside, I’d imagine he’ll rebrand the gyms, and where the associated shop is within a few miles of a Sports Direct (Halifax is one example, and also I think near Ikea at Birstall) the SD shop will close and relocate
Interesting that Mike Ashley has made a token gesture for Dave Whelan's DW empire.
Ashley's decision to close down the Sports Direct warehouse in Martland Mill, Wigan last year, met with much anger & hostility throughout the town.
Whelan himself a born & bred Wiganer and one of the town's sporting & business icons has always prided himself on all his portfolios being based in the town. Firstly, the chain of Whelan supermarkets, Pooles bakery, JJB Sports & the DW chain.
Ashley is a very ruthless character who has proven to be someone who s**ts on the little people. Many people I know who were affected by the Sports Direct redundancies are viewing his move on DW empire with strong reservations.
Interesting that Mike Ashley has made a token gesture for Dave Whelan's DW empire.
Ashley's decision to close down the Sports Direct warehouse in Martland Mill, Wigan last year, met with much anger & hostility throughout the town.
Whelan himself a born & bred Wiganer and one of the town's sporting & business icons has always prided himself on all his portfolios being based in the town. Firstly, the chain of Whelan supermarkets, Pooles bakery, JJB Sports & the DW chain.
Ashley is a very ruthless character who has proven to be someone who s**ts on the little people. Many people I know who were affected by the Sports Direct redundancies are viewing his move on DW empire with strong reservations.
Vue and Cineworld have both been complaining about losing money, when half of the films that were due to come out have been put straight onto streaming platforms you can understand, but then again they make enough money as it is, that coupled with the way they treat some of their staff the bad outweighs the good.
As much as I wouldn’t want to see them go, it wouldn’t surprise me if Vue are struggling. All the ones I see around me are £4.99 any film, any time - pretty much half the price of any other cinemas.
I was going to suggest that, but the purchase has to be over £100.
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If this was before lockdown, I would have suggested B & Q were in difficulty. Our local one had two sets of 4 self service tills. One set was never open, and the other set had never been converted to contactless. Then they removed the second set completely, so just about everyone got stuck in queues, and it just got quieter and quieter. 10% off day seemed to die out. Then coronavirus came along and it shut for that. I haven't actually gone back since to see if they have actually spent some money on contactless card readers, but they may now be in a better position to do so if they have sold out of all the paint.
As much as I wouldn’t want to see them go, it wouldn’t surprise me if Vue are struggling. All the ones I see around me are £4.99 any film, any time - pretty much half the price of any other cinemas.
I've not been to the cinema for a long long time. I actually thought my local multiplex cinema was a Vue but it is in fact an Empire.
As I've commented on previously - cinema going has rapidly declined in recent years. In eras gone by, many people didn't own televisions until the 1970s and the cinema experience was huge.
Even as a kid, I remember everyone in my year at high school talking about when they were going to watch Jurassic Park which was the blockbuster film of 1993.
There were two local cinemas near me at the time - the Ritz and the Unit Four. I can remember the queues to see JP with people anxiously waiting in the rain to get through the doors and people at the end of the queue being turned away once the cinema reached their maximum seating capacity. The Unit Four used to show duel viewings simultaneously if the film was a hot favourite, then do about four viewings throughout the day (the last one was usually around 10pm).
Cinema viewing is not the same - because of Netflix now and the volume of choice available on Sky broadband it is easy to see why people are more inclined to remain in the comfort of their own homes.
The use of face masks is likely to be a death sentence to many cinemas as people won't be able to enjoy refreshments during their film and of course cinemas will be losing massive revenue because people won't be buying the famous pick n mix!
Films also don't have the same influence on us anymore. I remember Tim Burton's Batman film coming out in 1989 and there was massive publicity with thinks like action figures and sticker albums for kids and all the speculation about it which built up the excitement. Sadly, superhero films seems to come out so frequently now - I have actually lost count of the number of times DC and Marvel characters have been regenerated with new actors & directors.
I've got a feeling cinemas will decline but will still operate in a reduced capacity like theatres where they still attract a captive audience of people who are very passionate about live performances. Some multiplex cinemas will go, a few will remain but I think they will reduce their floor space and slim down their size to streamline costs.
The winners of all of this will undoubtedly be the streaming services and the likes of Sky/Virgin/BT, as long as you pay the relevant subscription you can watch every premier league football match from your armchair which looks to continue into the next season for a while at least, you can watch Mulan (if you want to) on Disney+ with cheaper snacks in the comfort of your own home for £20 which as a family of 5 or 6 is cheaper than buying a ticket at the cinema and dealing with all the issues and anxieties that come with it, your kids can make as much noise as they like, you can pause it, watch it again multiple times etc... The likes of the new Bond, Top Gun and others may be hit in terms of revenue as I doubt the term box office smash has now gone.
Jack Wills went bust last year and were bought out of administration by Mike Ashley. They'll be OK for a while yet. They're the sort of brand that will thrive under Mike Ashley.
Agreed, seeing as Mike Ashley is buying out other sports chain competitors rather than helping out what he already has in HOF and Debenhams, but there are rumours that Next are interested in buying them.
Ashley no longer has any involvement with Debenhams. He lost his shareholding when they went into administration.
Ashley's recently renamed his main Sports Direct company Frasers Group plc, so I think HoF will also be OK for a while yet. It'll be for Ashley's pride as much as anything else.
Debenhams and House of Fraser are both going to struggle as the department store business has naturally high overheads. Ashley, loathe him or hate him, is good at trimming fat from businesses. It's a real shame Debenhams' board and bankers took against him so much, because I think they'd have thrived under Ashley.
His problem is that he's ended up with a weak department store chain- House of Fraser have struggled for a very long time, even back when Mohammed Al-Fayed owned them and they still had Harrods in the portfolio they struggled. They had Binns in the north east- a brand everyone from the north east knows from the iconic "Shop at Binns" you saw on every bus- and couldn't make it work, with Al-Fayed shutting all Binns stores as well as Rackhams stores in places like Bradford. I think Ashley's pride will make sure HoF are OK for now, but they're a weak brand and I'm not sure "pile it high and sell it cheap" will increase custom. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
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I've got a feeling cinemas will decline but will still operate in a reduced capacity like theatres where they still attract a captive audience of people who are very passionate about live performances. Some multiplex cinemas will go, a few will remain but I think they will reduce their floor space and slim down their size to streamline costs.
The big multiplex chains will, truthfully, be no great loss. Odeon and Vue seemingly compete as to who can make the experience as soul-destroying as possible. It's an expensive experience and, by and large, it's a crap one. For me, I stopped going when everything went 3D; I have a congenital eye defect that means 3D effects don't work for me, so I had no desire to pay over a tenner to wear some stupid glasses that didn't even work.
I will be heartbroken if the truly excellent independent cinemas go though. The Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle is simply joyful in every way, and if you've never been to the Cottage Road cinema in Leeds you must go the very second it re-opens, it is fabulous.
Interesting you mention Unit Four, there was one in Shipley, I don't know if there were others. God that place was grim. We lived barely a mile from it and our family never went, instead driving all the way to Birstall to use the Showcase instead.
@Tetchytyke Tyneside Cinema, although I haven't been I have wanted to ever since i moved up 3 years ago, most of the people I know who have been there says it is a completely different experience and a good one at that, the Customs House at South Shields will also struggle too.
I didn't realise that Debenhams were out of Ashley's ownership, I know that Next have signed a deal for the large outlet at the Metrocentre to take over the Debenhams there for clothing, homeware and beauty, so Next are obviously branching out into the beauty and make up sector too, we have family who work for Next and hearing from them, they are reasonably good to work for, I just hope that it doesn't end up like the TKMaxx/Homesense bit at the other end of the MetroCentre.
If this works for Next then there are rumours that they will look at other Debenhams plots for expansion.
House Of Fraser however, is a bit like M&S to me, the one interesting factor for another company you mentioned is Harrods, I wonder how much of a hit they have taken from this pandemic?
Independant picture houses are something to be cherished. There is one on Blossom Street in York, not too far from the train station. It shows quite alot of classic films and recent releases and the environment is much more enjoyable than an out of town multiplex cinema. This is the type of cinema that will survive because it will be supported by the local council and heritage organisations.
Places like Vue, Cineworld & Empire are part of the cinema business that sprung up in the late 1980s & early 1990s. Initially, they opened under other business names - the one in my town was a Virgin cinema and it has been under at least three different names since then.
These 'new' cinemas followed on the back of a wave of American style pleasure that swept across the UK around the same time as the out-of-town drive thru's, kind of like the 'Mall' mentality that has been in existance in the States for a very long time.
Multiplex cinemas were vibrant places for many years. However, as I said previously, people's lifestyle changes and the explosion of living room entertainment via Netflix means that the era of the multiplex has passed.
One or two will definately go - key multiplex locations like the Trafford Centre & Bolton Middlebrook will probably survive because they are right in the hub of very competitive retail sites. However others, such as the ones at Preston Docks & Warrington Gemini will probably be gone in a few years.
It does show the state of things when the big auction houses that specialize in liquidations are making monster profits from the likes of Brighthouse going bust.
Pret A Manger is cutting more jobs too and closing cafes too
@Tetchytyke Tyneside Cinema, although I haven't been I have wanted to ever since i moved up 3 years ago, most of the people I know who have been there says it is a completely different experience and a good one at that, the Customs House at South Shields will also struggle too.
The Tyneside Cinema has been there since the 30s and has a dedicated following, so I think it will be ok. Others in the area I'm not so sure about; the Jam Jar Cinema in Whitley Bay is fantastic too, but it doesn't have that dedicated following as it is much newer. I think the Customs House will be ok as it's council-owned, it's also a theatre, and the only other cinema in South Tyneside is out at Boldon Colliery.
He lost it when they went into administration, and so lost his entire investment. It's fair to say he wasn't best pleased.
I'm still surprised Debenhams closed their MetroCentre store. Presumably Intu weren't going to lower the rent enough for them. Next have only just got established in the old BHS unit, I'm surprised they're moving again so soon.
With regard to Mike Ashley and Dave Whelan, almost anyone who has had the misfortune to meet them tends to think as little of them as each other. I’m only one degree of separation from the former, but spending time with the latter was a skin-crawling experience.
His son-in-law, who ran the JJB business until shortly before his tragic death, was an absolute gentleman by contrast. Very sad.
The Tyneside Cinema has been there since the 30s and has a dedicated following, so I think it will be ok.
I'm still surprised Debenhams closed their MetroCentre store. Presumably Intu weren't going to lower the rent enough for them. Next have only just got established in the old BHS unit, I'm surprised they're moving again so soon.
The Tyneside Cinema has another specific challenge to face at the moment, completely unrelated to Covid. There’s a great deal of ill-feeling about it at the moment, locally.
With regard to NEXT at the Metro, they’re not moving; they’ve announced that they’re taking over the Debenhams unit for their new wheeze, NEXT Beauty.
From what I can gather, this is a device to use their brand to umbrella a boat load of the usual cosmetics concessions, not employing anyone directly for those counters, interspersed with racks of very high margin own-brand war paints and pongs. It’s akin to the Selfridges Manchester model.
I fear that your crystal ball is actually a rear view mirror with regard to two of those, and needs a good clean to see what’s actually the case with most of the rest of them!
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The Tyneside Cinema has another specific challenge to face at the moment, completely unrelated to Covid. There’s a great deal of ill-feeling about it at the moment, locally.
The latter, and as a result there’s an investigation ongoing (from memory there are about 140 complaints) and the British Film Institute has withdrawn support.
That's a shame. It's a problem in a lot of third-sector organisations where trustees have neither the knowledge nor the expertise to deal with problematic senior management, so they ignore the issues and hope they go away.
That's a shame. It's a problem in a lot of third-sector organisations where trustees have neither the knowledge nor the expertise to deal with problematic senior management, so they ignore the issues and hope they go away.
In a situation like this, the closest that they’d get is administration.
There’s no way that the administrators could lock the tenants out; it’s now a case of KPMG keeping the lights on and the doors open while they negotiate with the lenders, which latterly the Intu management had been unable to do.
Ultimately, a vehicle will have to be ‘constructed’ to get rents to the lenders, and the lenders to accept terms.
There’s no value to the business without the tenants, so the lenders couldn’t rationally perform any kind of foreclosure - unless they somehow thought that these massive sites could be redeveloped into something completely different with greater value. Realistically, though, you’re talking new airport, freight marshalling yard, car factory etc., etc., to need the same land take, and that’s exceptionally unlikely in the current climate.
I've worked in the third sector most of my career, both charities and universities. If it wasn't a VC using university funds to go to "titty bars" (his words) whilst having an affair with the person who was supposed to oversee his conduct, it was a CEO and Chair of Trustees acting in cahoots to ensure all the senior female managers got fired...
I think B&Q will be ok - they seem to have benefited from lockdown, and my local one always seems busy. But it wouldn't surprise me if Homebase don't go bust again at some point in the not too distant future.
I've not been to the cinema for decades, is this true or an exaggeration?
Pearl & Dean last time I went!
I still go the Theatre and the like, but not the cinema.
Aside from Mike Ashley, I've heard quite a few stories about Dave Whelan over the years - anyone that has had the misfortune of working for him will tell you what a t**t he is.
A friend of mind was sacked by Whelan when he worked at the JJB Warehouse many years ago for talking on the shop floor. He was actually talking with a colleague about how they were going to move several pallets from one location to another - not exactly chatting about last night's football!!!
Another young lad who worked for him, tried to humour Whelan one day about his footballing career at Blackburn Rovers. Again, Whelan failed to see the funny side and sacked this lad on the spot.
I can't speak for Whelan's son-in-law, but I'm assuming he was married to his wonderful daughter who is now in charge of Wrightington Country Club (I believe DW has one son & one daughter). The lady in question has clearly inherited her father's people management skills and has certainly ruffled a few feathers since she took over the place from her father.
CJ
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Costa Coffee are to cut 1650 jobs in the latest bloodbath to the High Street.
One of the 'cosmopolitan' type dining establishments, I kind of get the impression they have over stretched their businesses empire a little too widely and are now suffering the same fate as Pizza Express.
Costa Coffee are to cut 1650 jobs in the latest bloodbath to the High Street.
One of the 'cosmopolitan' type dining establishments, I kind of get the impression they have over stretched their businesses empire a little too widely and are now suffering the same fate as Pizza Express.
Costa and Pizza Express are chalk and cheese. Costa is a generally profitable business, bankrolled by the extremely wealthy Coca Cola empire that has lost 20% of its sales due to declining footfall during a pandemic. Pizza express is riddled with debt and has been struggling since way before the pandemic.
In terms of Costa, the 1650 is a sacrificial offering to the Coca Cola gods to make it look like something is happening. The fact is, 'Assistant Manager' is a relatively new position in Costa and was only introduced about a decade ago. Equally, the '1650' isn't really 1650; many Assistant Manager positions are vacant due to a recruitment freeze since the beginning of this year and some smaller stores never had an AM anyway. Thus there are many Supervisor positions available for Assistant Managers to drop into too. Finally, Costa's peak trading period starts in October, when all hands will be needed which should secure more jobs. While I feel for all the affected AM's, particularly with all the uncertainty and going through an unpleasant redundancy process, most should have a job at the end of it and while it would be a drop down, a Costa supervisor is still relatively well paid position compared to what many similar business' would pay.
I just hope I'm not wrong and that this is merely the tip of the iceberg, but this seems the situation in my area. I do think this redundancy situation is a lot of fuss, for what saves a relatively negligible amount of money on a store basis however.
In wider news, the furlough scheme ends soon so I do think we will see a rise in the number of redundancies soon.
How vulnerable is the coffee business though?
Highly discretionary spend in a recession (surely at some point these folk who can’t exist without a coffee in their hand will stop and realise how much they are spending?!), and highly reliant on office workers and shoppers which is looking like a permanently repressed market. And there are soooo many coffee shops!
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