Decanter World Wine AwardsOddbins: buyers’ interest grows
- Tuesday 5 April 2011
Following a 30-minute hearing yesterday in the High Court, London Oddbins Ltd and Oddbins Properties Ltd were put into administration. Lee Manning and Matthew Smith, partners at business advisory firm Deloitte, have been appointed joint administrators for the two companies.
Oddbins was placed in administration on the basis of a pending sale of the business and the need to keep it and its assets viable during this process. It was not put into administration as a going concern as it was insolvent both with respect to its cash flow and balance sheet.
“We have received a number of expressions of interest,” Lee Manning told decanter.com. “Some are interested in the whole portfolio, others in some of the shops, while others are just interested in the stock. I would say the number of expressions of interest is still in single figures but it is now approaching double.”
“Some of the parties are in the wine trade, some outside. However, we haven’t received any offers yet. I expect this initial process to probably take at least another week before we start moving forward."
"We will continue to trade the company whilst seeking a sale as a going concern. Employees will continue to be paid and will be fully briefed.”
British Gas’ winding up order was dismissed yesterday. It is understood that there were at least two other winding up orders served on the company. One from Pol Roger Ltd, owed £273,612, was withdrawn as they wanted Oddbins to survive.
Click here to see the Decanter magazine Editor, Guy Woodward, on Oddbins' demise.
Have your say!
Oddbins Widow
April 13 11:23
Simon buying the business back would surely seal its fate. How on earth are suppliers expected to trust him with their produce and livelihoods? Will any of the remaining staff want to work with him again? I very much doubt it. Simon should be using his money to pay off the money owed to the taxman, his creditors and ex-staff who have been cheated out of redundancy pay due to them. Perhaps some of the money invested in his small chain of Ex Cellar shops should be used for this as it seems they are surviving quite nicely at the moment, with a new branch opening last year in Claygate. Perhaps the 17.5m they owe to Oddbins has helped to keep them afloat?
Oddbins now needs the backing of a large operation with deep pockets who can invest to really restore it to its former glory as an interesting, quirky chain of shops with a good range of stock in them and motivated staff who aren't all exhausted by worrying about their jobs and struggling to take any time off as the shops are now so understaffed. Sales targets have been set unfeasibly high given that a lot of wholesale accounts have disappeared due to stores not having enough stock to fill orders and staff are seeing customers go elsewhere as they cannot supply them. Managers at the stores have not had adequate backing from head office for ages now yet still continue to be held responsible for not achieving targets.
The article above also says that staff will be 'fully briefed' on the whole process. Why is it then that staff are having to use the internet and media to find out what is going on with their own employers as no-one in management can be bothered to brief them at all?
Nick Pygott
April 08 15:28
There was a lot of positive feeling when Simon bought Oddbins because of the family link, a business eventually passing from father to son. Surely if, as rumoured, Simon buys the company again, this would be a natural extention of that?
This can only be a good thing, so how about less negativity? Come on guys, get excited and shout about it!