Jessops Share Price falls below £0.01

foodpoison said:
I really hope we don't go into admin, because no one will want to buy us out.
Not cool.
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I guess that largely depends on a number of things:

1) What are the stock levels like
2) Are the properties owned or rented
3) What's the pension scheme like
4) How is the debt packaged

Not looking for answers to those questions, just food for thought. Unlikely a private equity firm will make a move in a market like this, as there is no scope for a quick buck, and the main problem is 'who is there to buy them?' No competitor with the buying power that I can think of.

Still, if like for like sales are up that much I don't think it's necessarily time to think about administration... time to buy more shares! :)
 
If things do end up going badly, i can't help but thinking of the bargains possible after reading someone got a ps3 from Woolies for £30!

D3 for £100 anyone?! I'll take two, thanks!
 
the_doctor199 said:
If things do end up going badly, i can't help but thinking of the bargains possible after reading someone got a ps3 from Woolies for £30!

D3 for £100 anyone?! I'll take two, thanks!
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Again, depends entirely on stock levels to be honest. Any company that's sensible when going into admin will have tried to ensure they are running at next to no stuck before they are forced to take the plunge.

But yes, clearly if that happens there will be some bargains!
 
the_doctor199 said:
If things do end up going badly, i can't help but thinking of the bargains possible after reading someone got a ps3 from Woolies for £30!

D3 for £100 anyone?! I'll take two, thanks!
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I went into the Big W superstore in Glasgow just after the Woolworths' closure was announced to see if their were any bargains and the whole counter that had previously had all the p+s cameras and stuff like that had mysteriously vanished :cautious: , but judging by the stuff that they had still on the shelves I now know where all the utter crap you see at carboot sales originally came from :LOL:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I went into the Big W superstore in Glasgow just after the Woolworths' closure was announced to see if their were any bargains
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a mate of mine went in to woolies on monday and picked up a pretty good bargain, they were selling all the dvds off, he looked behind the counter and saw a box of dvds with no cases.

how much are they er 5 for a quid, he bought 100 films for £20:LOL:
 
wack61 said:
a mate of mine went in to woolies on monday and picked up a pretty good bargain, they were selling all the dvds off, he looked behind the counter and saw a box of dvds with no cases.

how much are they er 5 for a quid, he bought 100 films for £20:LOL:
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Yeah there was a similar think up North in a woolies where they had Xbox360 games going for £0.50... mental!
 
Dave Stone said:
"Do you have any money at all?
Buy a lens from Jessops, keep all the packaging, use it until you get a new lens, and return it under the 28 days exchange and returns policy"

Can't imagine their staff giving customers this kind of advice has helps business :)
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I remember reading that here before....Don't know how to react, but that's just not a good advise from a person working for Jessops :shrug:.
 
Jessops seem to be stumbling from one crisis to another.
It's a sorry state of their own making. They need an axe guru to cut off the dead wood, make some hard decisions and get the business competing in their market.
Piecemeal attempts at saving the business have not been enough.

The position in Glasgow is totally crazy - as Flash says, 3 stores in Glasgow within a five minute walk of each other - and that's only the city centre.
Another two Glasgow stores, one in the southside and one in westend of Glasgow - total madness. There is also a store in East Kilbride shopping complex just outside Glasgow.
And only a year or so ago they had another in the Forge Shopping Centre (5 minute drive from city centre and now closed).

From what's been said, this is not uncommon with them in other cities.
How any exec could believe there is enough business in the Greater Glasgow area, population about a million or so, to sustain this number of stores is beyond me.

IMO Two Glasgow stores (max) would be able to cater for most of the market.
Two city centre stores - one catering for DSLR market and one for compacts, bins, cheap scopes etc. Each directing custom to the other with trained, knowledgeable staff.

Closing stores is difficult for the staff, but if nothing is done they will ALL be out of work.
 
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Shareprice jumped up 50% to 1.60 before close. That sort of thing tends to mean there's been a statistic information leak or a takeover bid (whether accepted or not) - although when you're '50% increase' only equaltes to £0.005...
 
Rockshifter said:
IMO Two Glasgow stores (max) would be able to cater for most of the market.
Two city centre stores - one catering for DSLR market and one for compacts, bins, cheap scopes etc. Each directing custom to the other with trained, knowledgeable staff.
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It's interesting what you've said Rockshifter; not having been to Glasgow, I can only comment on the London situation. We have a LOT of Jessops stores in London.

I went and bought my camera from Jessops the other day on the Strand (I work behind the London Eye), and I was asking myself the question earlier of whether or not I'd have gone eleswhere if there hadn't been a Jessops near me. I wonder how many purchases made in a 'City' environment are people like me who, after a long day at the office, simply cannot be bothered going very far to purchase an item.

To some extent I think there is a case for proximate storefronts, but then again I'm in London... and we all know London tends to be the exception to the rule. Your thoughts on this?
 
Rockshifter said:
c. Each directing custom to the other with trained, knowledgeable staff.

Closing stores is difficult for the staff, but if nothing is done they will ALL be out of work.
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It's also difficult to close a store if they have a lease. It maybe that they would like to close some shops but if they are committed to a long lease what can they do. They have a choice between trading and trying to take some money to offset the costs or closing and taking the full hit of rent and rates with no income. A rock and a hard place springs to mind.

and....

don't forget that some of the problems have been caused by us togs buying gear from Hong Kong and all kinds of mad places in order to save 50p. :-(
 
I wouldnt say that its been entirely brought on by us buying from Hong Kong, there's a significant saving to be made if bought from HK on some items, if the price in Jessops was more reasonable i would buy from there, to have the comfort of seeing the product before i bought it and getting good customer service (something the Jessops in Belfast definately lacks).
 
I've bought from Jessops when they have been relatively close to the best internet price but sometimes they are waaaayyy off. Even though I'm in IT and of the internet generation I still like the idea of rocking up to a shop to get my gear.

I've got £80 in Jessops vouchers that I was going to use on a special 28 day order. Might go and blow them tomorrow just in case. (Any excuse to go shopping)
 
timr said:
Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of competition now is there? :LOL:
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Not at all. Competition is usually a good thing. But it does mean winners and losers. And I'm not entirely sure that the competition we see these days is healthy.

You see, the shops provide a service and allow us to go in and actually handle the equipment and talk to a person who knows about it. We can take out existing kit in and see if it fits and experience what it feels like with a new lens for example. We can usually collect it there and then. If something goes wrong we can take it back and get it sorted face to face with a human.

Very often, people use the shop to find out what they want (and not just togs) and then go home and buy on line to save a couple of quid.

What happens when all the shops have gone? How will we find out what a particular lens is like on our camera? How will we be able to compare the 'feel' of two different camera bodies? Who will we be able to ask questions of? If it all goes wrong, who will we be able to go and get to sort it all out?

I have no idea.
 
Badger UK said:
It's also difficult to close a store if they have a lease. It maybe that they would like to close some shops but if they are committed to a long lease what can they do. They have a choice between trading and trying to take some money to offset the costs or closing and taking the full hit of rent and rates with no income. A rock and a hard place springs to mind.

and....

don't forget that some of the problems have been caused by us togs buying gear from Hong Kong and all kinds of mad places in order to save 50p. :-(
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I would doubt if Jessops have a lease commitment longer than 5 years and even they couldn't sub let the overheads would drop as no staff/heat/light etc etc. Also there are deals where half the rates are payable if the premisis is for sale/rent but this varies from council to council on retail properties.
 
Badger, agree 100%.

That's why I internet-research everything to death, find the cheapest high-street price (unless it's wayyyyyyy off) and go buy it from there.

HATE telephone returns/customer services lines with a passion (No offence to anyone who works in a call centre :LOL:)
 
admirable said:
I would doubt if Jessops have a lease commitment longer than 5 years and even they couldn't sub let the overheads would drop as no staff/heat/light etc etc. Also there are deals where half the rates are payable if the premisis is for sale/rent but this varies from council to council on retail properties.
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I have no idea how long the leases are, but even 5 years is a long time to keep a premises with no income. Especially when you look at the huge rents payable for city centre premises these days.

It will be interesting to see what effect the recession will have on commercial rents. It looks like there could well be a shed load of empty shops on the hight street over the next few years. Let's hope Jessops shops aren't among them.
 
admirable said:
I would doubt if Jessops have a lease commitment longer than 5 years and even they couldn't sub let the overheads would drop as no staff/heat/light etc etc. Also there are deals where half the rates are payable if the premisis is for sale/rent but this varies from council to council on retail properties.
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and the rest local shopping centre to us do the leases in 15 year blocks! My mate used to own a shop in it, and that was non negotiable, so when companies shut up shop they can either deal with the costs or sell on what's left of the lease.
 
timr said:
Badger, agree 100%.

That's why I internet-research everything to death, find the cheapest high-street price (unless it's wayyyyyyy off) and go buy it from there.

HATE telephone returns/customer services lines with a passion (No offence to anyone who works in a call centre :LOL:)
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That's the way to do it.
 
ifotou said:
and the rest local shopping centre to us do the leases in 15 year blocks! My mate used to own a shop in it, and that was non negotiable, so when companies shut up shop they can either deal with the costs or sell on what's left of the lease.
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There are not many peeps taking on a 15 year straight lease without a 5 year break clause. There will be exceptions but not many. They have all learned their lesson. In the 80's, 25 year leases were the norm!
 
I live in Warrington and have used the local Jessops there as well as the Mancehster Deansgate and Trafford Centre branches. Have to say the staff in the smaller Warrington branch were more knowledgeable and interested.
Maybe I was just unlucky but in the other two the level of staff knowledge was abysmal and I saw one in the Trafford Centre be downright rude to a customer.
Went to their Liverpool store once, absolutely tiny, and left in disgust. Walked a few hundred yards to the Jaobs store where they really knew what they were talking about.
All that said Jessops do have a great network of stores so let's hope they survive.
 
haggis said:
I live in Warrington and have used the local Jessops there as well as the Mancehster Deansgate and Trafford Centre branches. Have to say the staff in the smaller Warrington branch were more knowledgeable and interested.
Maybe I was just unlucky but in the other two the level of staff knowledge was abysmal and I saw one in the Trafford Centre be downright rude to a customer.
Went to their Liverpool store once, absolutely tiny, and left in disgust. Walked a few hundred yards to the Jaobs store where they really knew what they were talking about.
All that said Jessops do have a great network of stores so let's hope they survive.
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You are right abou tthe varying knowledge of staff in shops.

And yes, the Jessops in Liverpool is really rubbish.

Deansgate is nice and big with good stock levels.

I bought my 40D and G9 from the Trafford Centre. The lads in the shop couldn't have been more helpful if they'd tied.

A couple of months ago I bought a Nifty Fifty for my daughter. I got it from a shop in the new shopping mall in Warrington (can't remember the name; might have been Wildings) and the people in there really seemed to know their stuff.

If I have a frustration with Jessops, it that they don't seem to have enough counter space. When I was buying my 70-200 f2.8L series lens (From Deansgate on a Sunday, so possibly half my fault) I waited in a queue of people buying batteries and bits and pieces (which wasn't a problem) but then when it was my turn there was about 10 people waiting behind me. I felt very guilty and rushed during the transaction. I actually wanted to buy some ND filtres and a flash at the same time but didn't because of the snarling pack of people waiting for the poor assistant to finish serving me. What for do!
 
Up until about the middle of last year there were two stores in Ipswich within 50 yards of each other :eek:

Total and utter madness, the one they closed was the biggest one too :bang:
 
The Bath Jessops is now a reasonably sized unit with half the floor space completely empty, no idea what they are up to but it's a very sorry sight, doesn't look welcoming is often not very busy at all.

LCE, just up the road, is crammed full of the latest gear and always seems to be busy, on the whole the prices seem to be a little higher, but the staff are absolutely superb.

Interestingly, our local Currys has just been refurbed, and has a brilliant camera section. All the cameras are set out on stands that you can pick up and play with, and they seem to have most bodies in stock. Same goes for the video cameras, all set out so you can pick them up and use them, with monitors in front of each so you can see the playback instantly. Hopefully that's the future of stores like that, much better than having them in a glass cabinet.
 
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timr said:
Shareprice jumped up 50% to 1.60 before close. That sort of thing tends to mean there's been a statistic information leak or a takeover bid (whether accepted or not) - although when you're '50% increase' only equaltes to £0.005...
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Yes however the thing with penny stocks is that they are the most volatile and therefore riskiest of shares. A 50% ROI over a day is not to be sniffed at. ;)
 
Uneducated_Rick said:
As of 12:57 they were up to 2.5p each.

Good way to double or even triple your money when they were between 0.8 and 1.2
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But the buy/sell spread was probably 2p so you wouldn't even be back to square one yet. Difficult.
 
Update: Closed at 2.75p today or £0.0275

A fair amount of money has changed hands today, but it looks as though the share price will now remain fairly static until the Christmas results are released. This kind of activity usually implies that no one really knows anything and people are just taking punts or cutting their losses... guess it's time to just sit and wait until they publish their figures.
 
Jessops today announced it recorded a strong positive like-for-like performance over the Christmas period.

However, the company said margin was affected by the challenging market conditions for retailers.

For the 5 week period ended 5th January 2009, like-for-like sales were up 3.1% and for the 14 week period ended 5th January 2009, like-for-like sales were down 5.6%.

Jessops will release its preliminary results for the year ended 30th September 2008 later this month and the Board confirms it expects to deliver results in line with its previous guidance that EBITDA for the year ended 30th September 2008 will be more than £4.4m.

Now trading at 3.75p - 4.25p
 
I wondering if Jessops will be able to take advantage of the new proposals for Government backed loans? They may be too big to qualify but would be nice if they could to keep a major player with photography in the UK.

Got to agree about the Glasgow statement, because there are so many branches they each have different types of stock held in branch. I'd rather one large central branch in the centre with all the stock - it's a small enough city to do this I reckon. The Calumet branch in Glasgow isn't the best but they do have their own parking area which I like especially if buying expensive stuff so you can get it into your car quickly and safely.
 
I was in Manchester yesterday evening, got a shock to see the main store on Deansgate had been closed down! There were big posters in the window saying business had been transferred to the Princess Street branch...which is bloomin' tiny!

A worrying sign?
 
i really dont think there is any more to worry about than normal guys. share prices were 3.00 at close of play yesterday but were 4.65 on the 9th. yeah a slight fall in tha last few days but a hell of alot better that 0.01 a week ago!
wish i had bought some now!

2 years ago the shares were 115.00 but they have been below 40.00 for the last 18 months. they havent been more than 6.00 in the last 6 months and have been very up and down in that period...

gotta love the iphone stocks app :LOL:
 
timr said:
I'll have to read the t&c's I suppose. Thanks for the info.

Edit: Foodpoison - Personally I think it'd be silly for anyone to be making jokes about administration/redundancy at the moment - I can't imagine too many professions out there that are truly 'safe'. Scary times.
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Only seems to be administrators who are safe at the moment. We try to joke about it at work as we are being cut by 1/3. Must be easy to get overtime at Ernst & Young right now.

Choccy...
 
Choccy said:
Only seems to be administrators who are safe at the moment. We try to joke about it at work as we are being cut by 1/3. Must be easy to get overtime at Ernst & Young right now.

Choccy...
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You would think so, but having worked in one of the 'big four' professional services firms, being administrators is not all joy. Administrators bid for the contract, meaning their fee is fixed. This typically means that if it turns out to be quite nasty and complex you can have quite a small team trying to manage something gargantuan (arguably part of the problem with Woolies). And no, there is no overtime pay in these companies... and in this economic climate, few bonuses either...
 
Deansgate was closed as the landlord, at the end of hte lease period, attempted to DOUBLE the rent.

Pretty pathetic in the current climate to try and double the rent of a retailer?
 
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