Tesco

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smeg said:
Off topic but a friend of a friend just traded his East Coast points in for Nectar and now has £650 on his Nectar card :confused:
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My £1500 worth of EC points translated to £7.50 in Nectar points so he must have spent a f***ing fortune to get anywhere near that.
 


James said:
My £1500 worth of EC points translated to £7.50 in Nectar points so he must have spent a f***ing fortune to get anywhere near that.
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His employer spent a fortune ;). He must have been commuting for a few years between Newcastle and KC.
 
The balance sheet makes fairly interesting reading. You always expect a bit of the kitchen sink when a new CEO takes over a troubled company, so he can look good in subsequent years. But they've halved the book value of the company at a stroke. The UK retail arm is now worth less than half of the Asian arm and has fallen below the European arm.

The company has spent about about £340m more in cash than it brought in. It would have pissed away more cash, but for a c.£1.7bn net increase in borrowings.

If they keep to the £1bn max cap-ex and no dividend pledges next year, they might turn it around but if the trading performance dips any more they might be in serious trouble.
 
JAZZMANB said:
Its a shop man:lol:

Pissed me off when they start opening Express ones all over right next to locally owned shops,just bullies getting their payback
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I used to work next to this independent stationers who had been around for donkey's years. They still had loads of shop fittings from way back in the 1930's. One day the owner was sat there when all these guys in suits turn up. They pull out pads and start writing down the details of all the local history books and postcards, and anything else that picked up a little trade that was local to the area. After a couple of minutes the owner said "Erm, excuse me, what are you up to?" and they told him as bold as brass that they were buyers from Tesco and they were taking notes on the local items he sold so that they could start selling them at the giant Tesco store 5 minutes walk around the corner. There could be no straight retail value in those products to them. They are essentially just trying to avoid any reason for people to go outside or their store, and trying to hurt the remaining local retailers when they inevitably massively discount the local focused stock at a loss and leave the local retailer with a load of stock that he can not sell.

I think one of the worst things Tesco have done is in regards to their massive influence on town planning. For example, in the town of Hucknall, just outside of Nottingham, Tesco have planted a ginormous store some years ago, and contrived that the road system worked in particular to favour them and direct traffic past their store. In the last couple of years they have successfully campaigned for the pedestrianisation of Hucknall's main High Street, which will stop any traffic going through the town centre and prevent another huge amount of passing trade. Just to make sure it happens, they are paying for the cost of the development. This is trade mark strangling of the High Street and independent business and the local councils are complicit in it. You can look all over the country and see the same thing happening over and over again.

Take Watford where Tesco built a store in 1988, and expanded it to the first of the mega-stores in the late 1990's. That development involved building on a flood plain, as well as redirecting a river. Tesco love building next to water features and dotting their car parks with hedges, which means that their developments are ideal environments for rats to thrive. The Tesco Watford store at one time had such a terrible rat problem that at any one moment you could see one or more scuttling between the hedges every few seconds. They also owned a hotel built further down on the flood plain (on Water Lane), which actually was built partially on stilts and had boats stored in the car park. Following these developments Watford suffered frequent flooding in surrounding areas until extensive work on drainage was undertaken. A more ideal use of the land would have been a relocation of the Vicarage Road football stadium, or perhaps more sensibly the Watford General Hospital. Instead, the prime location for access by traffic for the whole of Watford is Tesco, with a link to the M25 financed by - Tesco, and a ridiculous one way system that seems to direct all traffic back to... Tesco.

stapler said:
The balance sheet makes fairly interesting reading. You always expect a bit of the kitchen sink when a new CEO takes over a troubled company, so he can look good in subsequent years. But they've halved the book value of the company at a stroke. The UK retail arm is now worth less than half of the Asian arm and has fallen below the European arm.

The company has spent about about £340m more in cash than it brought in. It would have pissed away more cash, but for a c.£1.7bn net increase in borrowings.

If they keep to the £1bn max cap-ex and no dividend pledges next year, they might turn it around but if the trading performance dips any more they might be in serious trouble.
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Writing down the UK value by that amount is either a desperate measure to try and avoid prosecution, or further shiftiness to try undervalue the company. Common sense would dictate that it would be unwise to try and fiddling things further while there is an ongoing investigation, but knowing how they work, some might think it is a great opportunity. The UK operation can not be valued at half of the Asian arm. The Asian operation is an absolute joke compared to the UK company.

JAZZMANB said:
You saying they're making it up,despite being in hot water for miscalculating in the past?
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I do not think that would make any difference to them. I think it is possible that they need to do a bit of a write down as there are probably more secrets to come out otherwise, and they have decided if they are going to do one, it might as well benefit them, so they are over milking it and hoping it protects their current way of operating. The write downs on their property holding are plainly insane, but they would be hard to categorically pick apart. They are a massive employer, and sending signals that there may down the line be a cash flow issue for the business would be very worrying to future Governments.
 
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stapler said:
Much as I love being sued for libel, I don't think I'll join your debate Mr Anaconda.
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I do not think there is any risk of that happening whatsoever. The chance of Tesco litigating against me is nil. I think they would be delighted that I has only gone as far as I have gone. I had some interesting information about them a couple of weeks ago, that I think they would be more frightened of, but again I could never see them litigating because it could only certify the truth, and the truth to them in pretty much any department is going to massively harm them.
 
smeg said:
His employer spent a fortune ;). He must have been commuting for a few years between Newcastle and KC.
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Too right! It's mad how much some people clock up, I was speaking to a bloke on the train last month who had racked up £15k's worth of train tickets, he was gutted about the change over, the new rewards scheme is awful in comparison.
 
JumpingAnaconda said:
I do not think there is any risk of that happening whatsoever. The chance of Tesco litigating against me is nil. I think they would be delighted that I has only gone as far as I have gone. I had some interesting information about them a couple of weeks ago, that I think they would be more frightened of, but again I could never see them litigating because it could only certify the truth, and the truth to them in pretty much any department is going to massively harm them.
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Careful of red dots
 
JumpingAnaconda said:
I do not think there is any risk of that happening whatsoever. The chance of Tesco litigating against me is nil. I think they would be delighted that I has only gone as far as I have gone. I had some interesting information about them a couple of weeks ago, that I think they would be more frightened of, but again I could never see them litigating because it could only certify the truth, and the truth to them in pretty much any department is going to massively harm them.
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How would suing you for libel certify the truth of your claim?
 
look out piano said:
I'm just putting 2 and 2 together, less and less people are shopping there and they're losing money at an alarmingly fast pace. I've shopped there once or twice but don't find them to be as value for money as say Asda.
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Tbf, Jack Daniels from Asda is always much cheaper than Tesco.
 
look out piano said:
I'm just putting 2 and 2 together, less and less people are shopping there and they're losing money at an alarmingly fast pace. I've shopped there once or twice but don't find them to be as value for money as say Asda/Aldi etc.
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I know what Becs meant about the core grocery bit. Plenty of stuff in tescos but not much choice of brands if you get what i mean
 
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