Are Jessops Going Under????

I worked for Jessops many yeas ago when Frank Jessop was the main man. Top bloke and really down to earth. There is no doubt for me that his retiral was the beginning of the end. Then came along Dixons Store Group who bought the company and accelerated the process of decline. You just can't run these shops as a "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap" operation. (Especially since they're not particularly cheap anyway.)

I have a lot of good friends who still work for the company and they are frankly disgusted at how it's run today. You can go into some shops and still get top notch service from staff who not only know what they are talking about but actually care about their work and their customers. The reality now though is most of the staff are spotty teenagers who couldn't care less and only work there because they can't handle the commission based structure at Dixons / Currys or whatever they're called this week.

The new boss claims everything is rosey but I beg to differ!
 
Having worked in the trade for a number of years I can tell you that many in the industry could not believe that Jessops were ‘going public’.

The reason for this disbelief is that the camera industry has a lemming like disposition for putting turnover over before profit. Thus it was hard to believe that a PLC could survive on the wafer thin margins that the trade has come to live with.

To answer the question ,Jessops PLC did go bust, voluntary liquidation is like jumping before being pushed, it was only a matter of time before a supplier issued a winding up order on the company.

The ‘new’ company owned by Snap Equity did a deal with HSBC to take the company out of PLC ownership and run it as a private business, reading between the lines the bank still owns them in all but name and that is why each branch can carry such a huge debt loading .

My guess is that the bank don’t want to look like idiots, lending money to Jessops PLC made as much sense as bailing out the Titanic with bucket, quite clearly even the densest of the great British public could work out that that someone in the lending department had spent too much time in the loo sniffing baking powder if you get my drift.

I suspect that Jessops will ‘wither on the vine’ a closure here, a closure there , suppliers will tighten lines of credit , shops will remain low on stock , turn over will drop , profits will drop, shops will close until quietly they will become a web only business like Dixons , or just disappear.

In the meantime the bank will recover as much debt as possible, through I suspect eye watering interest rates which now the company is in private hands we will never know.

The bank paid , CEO’s taking a nice wedge, big suppliers sorted, the doors will shut and everyone involved will go on to the next circus which typifies UK PLC.

Except the staff who will be booted on to the dole....... :thumbsdown:
 
Holden Caulfield said:
Having worked in the trade for a number of years I can tell you that many in the industry could not believe that Jessops were ‘going public’.

The reason for this disbelief is that the camera industry has a lemming like disposition for putting turnover over before profit. Thus it was hard to believe that a PLC could survive on the wafer thin margins that the trade has come to live with.

To answer the question ,Jessops PLC did go bust, voluntary liquidation is like jumping before being pushed, it was only a matter of time before a supplier issued a winding up order on the company.

The ‘new’ company owned by Snap Equity did a deal with HSBC to take the company out of PLC ownership and run it as a private business, reading between the lines the bank still owns them in all but name and that is why each branch can carry such a huge debt loading .

My guess is that the bank don’t want to look like idiots, lending money to Jessops PLC made as much sense as bailing out the Titanic with bucket, quite clearly even the densest of the great British public could work out that that someone in the lending department had spent too much time in the loo sniffing baking powder if you get my drift.

I suspect that Jessops will ‘wither on the vine’ a closure here, a closure there , suppliers will tighten lines of credit , shops will remain low on stock , turn over will drop , profits will drop, shops will close until quietly they will become a web only business like Dixons , or just disappear.

In the meantime the bank will recover as much debt as possible, through I suspect eye watering interest rates which now the company is in private hands we will never know.

The bank paid , CEO’s taking a nice wedge, big suppliers sorted, the doors will shut and everyone involved will go on to the next circus which typifies UK PLC.

Except the staff who will be booted on to the dole....... :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

I agree with you view on the longterm future of Jessops, a shame as they were once a good company.
 
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