The next store to close is....

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  • If more people work from home on a permanent basis then companies are going to have to pay their staff more to help cover things like their electric bill, phone/ISP bill and other household amenities that are getting used for work purposes. It's not like they are self employed and getting all the benefits of self employment like all the profit from doing the work. It will severely affect many peoples mental health too with not being able to separate work from home life or getting out and about and mixing with people outside ones household. Then there is the invasion of privacy into ones home.

    For many employees, the savings on travelling costs will cover it!

  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53136807

    This thread was always (indirectly) about the death of the high street, but if Intu collapses which runs the massive Lakeside shopping centre near me and Manchester's Trafford centre, could this signal the end of the out of town shopping centres?

    Long before Amazon ever came into existence, the American style shopping malls appeared, usually outside town centres, which had the immediate effect of sucking the life out of many town centres up and down the country. With the allure of free parking and a massive choice of shopping and leisure options, the high streets could not compete and that has remained the case for the last thirty years or so.

    It would seem odd that the virus may ultimately revitalise the fortunes of the high street, but if these massive malls do fail, could we see a resurgence in our high streets? Amazon can't do everything - yet.

  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53136807

    This thread was always (indirectly) about the death of the high street, but if Intu collapses which runs the massive Lakeside shopping centre near me and Manchester's Trafford centre, could this signal the end of the out of town shopping centres?

    Long before Amazon ever came into existence, the American style shopping malls appeared, usually outside town centres, which had the immediate effect of sucking the life out of many town centres up and down the country. With the allure of free parking and a massive choice of shopping and leisure options, the high streets could not compete and that has remained the case for the last thirty years or so.

    It would seem odd that the virus may ultimately revitalise the fortunes of the high street, but if these massive malls do fail, could we see a resurgence in our high streets? Amazon can't do everything - yet.

    I always found these shopping arcades full of very expensive shops, our nearest is the Drake Centre in Plymouth, and when visiting we make a beeline for a café which does super coffee and chocolate cake. There is an exotic chocolate shop there and was once tempted - you select individual ones which they then put in a box. Half a dozen was £30, I told her to keep them

  • Burn them all down I'd say. Their just more yanky doodle doo shite, somewhere for gangs, shoplifters and charity beggars to hang out. If we can go back to the high streets as they where before the internet then things would be a lot better. I think we should bring back traditional market stalls too. The only good thing about those big shopping centres is the food halls. It's handy If you out with a few people and one person wants Pizza, one person wants a burger and the other person wants fish n chips. You can have what you want and all sit together.

  • According to business news on R4 this morning the downward pressure on landlords rentals has reduced the value of Intu's holdings dramatically and that means their ability to borrow against assets is badly affected.

  • I think they're finished, which is why I posed the question whether this may ultimately help revitalise our high streets in the end. Everything goes full circle.

    Intu was struggling long before the virus and had amassed, as any developer usually does, large debts, but the virus has thrown one massive spanner into the works and prevented them from servicing that debt load. That couldn't continue for much longer and I don't think they'll be able to dig themselves out of this. I don't think they'll find a buyer either, who else would be interested in buying them at such a time? No one, me thinks.

    Burn them all down I'd say. Their just more yanky doodle doo shite, somewhere for gangs, shoplifters and charity beggars to hang out. If we can go back to the high streets as they where before the internet then things would be a lot better. I think we should bring back traditional market stalls too. The only good thing about those big shopping centres is the food halls. It's handy If you out with a few people and one person wants Pizza, one person wants a burger and the other person wants fish n chips. You can have what you want and all sit together.

    I'm not keen on them either, but you raise a interesting point about food halls. Not that I have had much experience in going to food halls, but if the high streets could replicate the experience as you stated, that might help them. No reason why high streets couldn't have communal seating areas, some of them do already.

    Now, I'm off to get some matches.:evil:;)

  • Intu was struggling long before the virus and had amassed, as any developer usually does, large debts,

    How do they thrive, reports say they are billions in debt

    Anybody else who struggles with a little bank loan/mortgage get hit hard

  • How do they thrive, reports say they are billions in debt

    Anybody else who struggles with a little bank loan/mortgage get hit hard

    Asset loan ratio: So long as the value of a company's or indeed county's assets are high enough lenders will be happy to loan money.

    If you had £billons worth of assets then the bankers will be queuing round the block to lend you money. Intu's problem as I said is that the value of their assets have been hit hard by the decline of the highstreet and topped by the lockdown.

  • Just as Cov 19 can be an especially dangerous enemy of any person with a poor physical immunity system, so the actions taken to survive (lockdown, social distance but with peristing anxirties about the future) becomes a dangerous enemy to a business with a poor financial immunity system, typically high volume, low margin, or a sales future that is increasingly against the tide or a manaageement incompete nce that could only mess along during the good times .... if you thought Brexit was leading to commercial doomsday, you ain't seen nothing yet. This is all about economic Darwinism

    Just as long as Cov 19 has a threatening presence - which can include a second wave or, further along the line, mutation, where vaccines might only lessen rather than eliminate the threat, I see all kinds of commercial vulnerabilities based on physical or economic foreboding:

    Theatres, where adequate social distancing is hopeless and made worse by the majority of theatres lacking air conditioning.

    Cinemas, where social distancing will limit the audience size, which wil increase the admission price to try and be profitable, which will make in-home entertainment a more than adequate good value alternative (the hard-to-define interaction between audience and screen is minimal compared with theatre live stage theatre), all of which means a buoyant market for upgrading screen size, streaming, etc. Small audiences of 4-8 becomes a new kind of social entertainment compared with the traditional dinner or supper party, which in any case has been in steady decline.

    High street retailers offering the kind of products that can't compete with Amazon or other on-line retail suppliers are particularly likely to face a slow-but-sure death .... if they haven't already thrown in the towel.

    Shopping streets that intermingle with cafes, bars, restaurants, bookshops, market days, special street events etc may have a better time of it, offering the one experience on-line shopping can't compete with: stimulation (a primary need of all iiving creatures)

    Larger-than-life department stores and shopping arcades also provide stimulation but social distancing becomes a hazard and an uncrowded department store or arcade resembes a morgue, which certainly isn't stimulating!

    Those shopping high streets handicapped by the kind of local authority that penalises rather than tries to accommodate motorists (eg with shuttle buses from outside carparks to the town centre) are in particular dire straits

    US shopping malls come in so many shapes and sizes that it is difficult to generalise. An impressive supermarket is often the central attraction and the other smaller more individualistic outlets thrive within the supermarket's gravity pull. In the age of the car, US shopping malls can't be ignored. Social distancing within these spacious malls is an obvious attraction. So far, British versions of US shopping malls don't seem to have got to grips with the formula needed.

    There are of course lots of winners.

    Gigaclear's fast optic fibre internet is doing well as people look more intensively for their kicks indoors.

    Holiday rentals in self catering villa/apartments is less restricting than hotels.

    Holidaying in one's own country rather than flying abroad is a no-brainer (except for the crowds thinking the same thing!).

    Equity release once elderly homeowners decide to stay put rather than downsize.

    Certain pharmaceutical companies are coining it.

    Private medicine and hence medical insurance, now that self-styled NHS heroes are beyond criticism and can carry on being their usual selves.

    More Dignitas-type centres.

    Goods deliverers and couriers.

    A higher quality or more innovative level of meal take-aways.

    A new restaurant chain than is designed within the limitations of social distance to be effective, proficient and an enjoyable eating-out experience and hence succesful and profitable.

    Golf and tennis clubs, where social distancing is easier

    .... and so on and so forth

  • How do they thrive, reports say they are billions in debt

    Anybody else who struggles with a little bank loan/mortgage get hit hard

    What Heero said, is also how the rich do business, including a billionaire owner of a certain cable company we all know.

    As long as you have the assets, they borrow on them indefinitely and never pay any tax. (Sorry, off topic there.)

  • But Boris is doing a very good job of impersonating David Owen at the moment, so well see on that one. I feel we're in store (pardon the pun) for more SDP stuff to come, so perhaps it won't be survival of the fittest after all.

    It's rare that I don't know get your drift. Am I missing something that's been in the news? Boris imitating David Owen? Do you mean in really leaving the EU and thus being faithful to the referendum? I recall Owen saying something about that late last year, denigraating all the two-faced MP's who only pretended to respect the referendum while trying to sabotage it and who were in effect killing democracy. What is the SDP stuff that you think we're "in store" (!) for?

  • What Heero said, is also how the rich do business, including a billionaire owner of a certain cable company we all know.

    As long as you have the assets, they borrow on them indefinitely and never pay any tax. (Sorry, off topic there.)

    If they really are all running on borrowing then whatever happened to prudence? Remember Mrs T's philosophy - "always have a back up store in the pantry for emergency"

    I remember years ago we had Peter De Savary storming around Cornwall promising to buy the place up, especially Lands End. In the end he was found to not have the money or assets to do any of it. We now have the likes of Branson crying because his airline has no money, holiday companies going bust because they relying on bookings income to pay for current holidays and unable to refund those bookings now cancelled. Is this a way to run business - robbing Peter to pay Paul

  • It's rare that I don't know get your drift. Am I missing something that's been in the news? Boris imitating David Owen? Do you mean in really leaving the EU and thus being faithful to the referendum? I recall Owen saying something about that late last year, denigraating all the two-faced MP's who only pretended to respect the referendum while trying to sabotage it and who were in effect killing democracy. What is the SDP stuff that you think we're "in store" (!) for?

    The drift is we seem to be in a era of spend, spend, spend.

    Supposedly, we have a conservative government, but Boris' policies seem more like SDP policies to me. Shirley Williams would be proud.

    And am just reading the rest of your post now.

  • Holidaying in one's own country rather than flying abroad is a no-brainer (except for the crowds thinking the same thing!).

    Well, with the restrictions easing, foreign holidays on back on.

    Private medicine and hence medical insurance, now that self-styled NHS heroes are beyond criticism and can carry on being their usual selves.

    But that's a conflict. Either private wins, or the NHS wins??:/

    Goods deliverers and couriers.

    Temporary. This is all done by mostly immigration labour and will be done by drones soon.

    A higher quality or more innovative level of meal take-aways.

    Interesting, but I think for those that can, when the restrictions allow, restaurants will make a comeback, those that survive that is. Far too many of them at the moment and the sector needed a shake out.

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