CITY LINK in administration
- Thread starter stevebm1
- Start date
My understanding was that the administration comes after the £40 million the new people invested a couple years ago has all but run out... not that new people are investing it now. So it seems like game over
And the guy that delivers here is such a genuinely nice friendly guy too!
And the guy that delivers here is such a genuinely nice friendly guy too!
New people? If I read correctly that was in 2013 and has been used up.
This is partially due to their sales resellers like parcel monkey, inter parcel, parcel2go etc - each one has just one API it can use with city link which cancels an order if the first pickup fails - this leads to frustration no h with the reseller and the provider by the consumer.
This affects us to an extent as we all have to use these resellers as the couriers don't want to deal direct with us as individuals.
It's not actually corporate volume that keeps these companies going as that just takes one or two big contracts being pulled to topple the enterprise.
So much for economic recovery
This is partially due to their sales resellers like parcel monkey, inter parcel, parcel2go etc - each one has just one API it can use with city link which cancels an order if the first pickup fails - this leads to frustration no h with the reseller and the provider by the consumer.
This affects us to an extent as we all have to use these resellers as the couriers don't want to deal direct with us as individuals.
It's not actually corporate volume that keeps these companies going as that just takes one or two big contracts being pulled to topple the enterprise.
So much for economic recovery
RGP said:
I don't think 'economic recovery' means that every poorly run and mismanaged company magically gets rescued and makes a profit regardless.
With the amount of online trading (Amazon, ebay, ebuyer, etc.) I find it astounding a delivery company cannot make a profit (this particular company has lost close to £40million in a little under two years).
If the volume just wasn't there (due to the lack of an 'economic recovery' you imply) why would they have so many employees and vans?
2,800 employees, 1,700 vans??? If business was slow (due to some lack of recovery) why not down-size?
Clearly the volume was there (evident by the fact City-Link deliveries were often late, and Yodel suspending collections because they had so much work they couldn't keep up).
From what I read, Citylink has been loss-making for the better part of a decade.
If their previous owner (Initial) was so desperate to off-load, they sold it for the token amount of £1, it shows the company has been in a very poor state for years.
I really don't think 'economic recovery' has anything to do with this.
Large companies fold all the time and it often has very little to do with the economic performance of the government in office at the time...
Rover back in 2005 - well before the current financial crisis hit.
Grundig just over 10 years ago.
Here's a classic example of an experience with sh*ttylink, waiting in all day for a parcel that fails to get delivered, I phone up to find out where it is, the basic reply/question is "white door?" now this as I find out is the stock excuse to get out of it, since most houses are now UPVC clad, I happened to have wooden doors, on my reply of a no, I get told to hang on and put on hold, this then happened several more times of the same white door comment until I hung up, and for that I have no problem with such a terrible company going down the pan!
Sadly it leaves us with the likes of myherpes and its habit of outsourcing to the cheapest nastiest white van parcel stomping idiots getting more business!
Sadly it leaves us with the likes of myherpes and its habit of outsourcing to the cheapest nastiest white van parcel stomping idiots getting more business!
There is way more in the background to this and will likely result in one of those laughable government enquiries.
Another large company collapsing regardless of circumstance is a hit for economic recovery.
I do sincerely feel for the 2800 employees basically sh*t on deliberately - they knew this was coming, concealed it to ensure nobody left and everyone did their job but effectively gave them 1 weeks notice. I know about 10 of them.
One of my clients is in the recruitment industry and January is a high traffic month but a surge of 2800 jobseekers isn't going to get fulfilled easily.
Regrettably, the company will get asset stripped to try and cover its debts, no doubt all buildings were leased and landlords will now be well out of pocket on 25-50 year leases which hold penalties but will be unenforceable as the administrators won't be accountable or liable. HMRC will be the preferential creditor but only at about 60p or thereabouts in the pound, everyone else will be subject to about 25-35p on a reducing scale.
Anyone entangled in this has no option to try and pass through some of the losses to other customers by penny here penny there price increases.
Just plenty of knock ons unseen
Another large company collapsing regardless of circumstance is a hit for economic recovery.
I do sincerely feel for the 2800 employees basically sh*t on deliberately - they knew this was coming, concealed it to ensure nobody left and everyone did their job but effectively gave them 1 weeks notice. I know about 10 of them.
One of my clients is in the recruitment industry and January is a high traffic month but a surge of 2800 jobseekers isn't going to get fulfilled easily.
Regrettably, the company will get asset stripped to try and cover its debts, no doubt all buildings were leased and landlords will now be well out of pocket on 25-50 year leases which hold penalties but will be unenforceable as the administrators won't be accountable or liable. HMRC will be the preferential creditor but only at about 60p or thereabouts in the pound, everyone else will be subject to about 25-35p on a reducing scale.
Anyone entangled in this has no option to try and pass through some of the losses to other customers by penny here penny there price increases.
Just plenty of knock ons unseen
I'd be amazed if there are many assets, other than the new uniforms and new hand-held scanners used by the drivers (and who's going to want 1,700 of them).
Chances are all vehicles, buildings, computers, etc. are leased (very few companies buy this sort of thing these days).
Plus; what people seem to forget is no investor is dumb enough to throw £40million at a company, only to deliberately close it 18 months later and asset-strip far less than their investment.
If they were that stupid, they wouldn't have been clever enough to acquire the £40million in the first place.
Chances are all vehicles, buildings, computers, etc. are leased (very few companies buy this sort of thing these days).
Plus; what people seem to forget is no investor is dumb enough to throw £40million at a company, only to deliberately close it 18 months later and asset-strip far less than their investment.
If they were that stupid, they wouldn't have been clever enough to acquire the £40million in the first place.
Crikey that's bad news
I've had dealings with them for years, old company used to have all the computer stuff delivered to the depots all around the UK and I collected and returned all the stuff there. When I sold things on ebay I knew they took big parcels, one of the best for heavier stuff and huge boxes the others wouldn't touch and used them loads over the last 10 years
Never really have any issues with them, odd late collections at xmas, odd person complained about parcel left somewhere and thrown over a wall but only very odd things so that's a great service gone.
Initial cleaning owned them for ages, what happened to that
I've had dealings with them for years, old company used to have all the computer stuff delivered to the depots all around the UK and I collected and returned all the stuff there. When I sold things on ebay I knew they took big parcels, one of the best for heavier stuff and huge boxes the others wouldn't touch and used them loads over the last 10 years
Never really have any issues with them, odd late collections at xmas, odd person complained about parcel left somewhere and thrown over a wall but only very odd things so that's a great service gone.
Initial cleaning owned them for ages, what happened to that
Initial got fed up with pouring money at them (City Link lost £26million in one year) so they cut their losses and offloaded the company for £1.Bods said:
Once that happens (a poorly run and mismanaged company being sold for £1) there's usually no turning back.
The new owners (bought it in Spring 2013) clearly thought they could throw £40million at CityLink and that would turn them around (thus making the new owners enough profit to pay back the £40million investment) - clearly didn't work and they've also cut their losses (and as no one wanted to buy CityLink this time, even for the token amount of £1, the only option was to wind up the company).
Still can't work out why Amazon didn't buy them (to add to their own delivery fleet) - Either Ernst & Young (whose employees clearly were paid overtime to make the Christmas Day announcement) either wanted too much money, or nobody was interested.
Still; the only bright side is the delivery industry in the UK is so overwhelmed, there's a fair bet most of the trade (thus jobs for some ex-CityLink staff) will be picked up by the other companies.