They have been in trouble a while they were sold for a £1 last year.:o
Rentokil Initial sells City Link for £1
Rentokil Initial has sold its "problem child" City Link parcels business for a nominal sum of £1 to Jon Moulton's private equity group, Better Capital, following five turbulent years of losses.
Rentokil will book a £40m loss on the deal, adding to the scores of other writedowns taken on the parcels business since 2006, when it was acquired as part of a £210m takeover of Target Express.
The group, whose other businesses include facilities management and hygiene services, announced last year that it had written off £146m on City Link, just 12 months after a previous £95m goodwill write-down.
Source Daily Telegraph April 2013.
At the same time they sold their facilities arm which provided outsourced domestics ect ect in places such as the NHS. They had that contract where i work.
They have been in trouble a while they were sold for a £1 last year.:o
Rentokil Initial sells City Link for £1
Rentokil Initial has sold its "problem child" City Link parcels business for a nominal sum of £1 to Jon Moulton's private equity group, Better Capital, following five turbulent years of losses.
Talk about just wanting to get rid of the courier firm.
Yes, I have just seen this in the news. That is bad as I know someone who did work for them (not sure if he still does?). I have noticed that Fedex and DHL have seemed to monopolised this type of industry.
Terrible time of year for this to happen and terrible for those who will likely be losing their jobs. However their choice of going into administration on Christmas Eve is not surprising as they will have the least amount of frieght in their network of any day in the year.
I wonder if it has failed to pay the rent due on its premises which would be due today
Would be the point as its the due day for the rent and if they don't have the cash then its game over so the only option is to call in the administrators as atleast that will give you some time to clear the undlivered parcels and bring in some cash to pay off some of the debt as otherwise i'd imagine the owners could possibly sieze the vans/parcels etc on the site?
I doubt they'd be able to seize the parcels as they don't belong to the company.
But being on the companies premises could make it a sticky point! I suppose it has do do with who actually owns the package and access rights to gain ownership so they'd be able to sit on them until a nice deal was made to allow access as otherwise it would be trespass?
But being on the companies premises could make it a sticky point! I suppose it has do do with who actually owns the package and access rights to gain ownership so they'd be able to sit on them until a nice deal was made to allow access as otherwise it would be trespass?
Not really the law in this regard has been tried and tested a lot a fair bit.
The packages are not stock or anything, the courier has no ownership of them, hence no claim on them (nor do the receivers/administers).
At most the senders, or possibly the addressees might be asked to pay for the onward shipping by another courier.
I suspect in this instance the people who have taken over will attempt to honour the current deliveries if they wish to attempt to try and sell the company on, or simply do a deal with one of the other couriers to do a single bulk collection for delivery of the packages (or for things sent by companies such as Amazon it could be that the sender will arrange for all of their packages to be collected and resent themselves..
Either way as the packages are not an asset of the company, but are simply under the care of them, at worst I suspect it'll be a case of the delivery being delayed..
Even if a retailer has gone bust and has something you've paid for, if the company actually has the stock allocated the receivers will attempt to get it to you, as by doing so they reduce the loss (as they then don't have the debt for the cost of the goods that you've paid for added to their losses and the sale price of the stock before they went bust is likely to be higher than would be received when sold by the receivers). IIRC when HMV went bust they had a bunch of packed orders that the receivers couldn't/wouldn't touch as they were no longer the property of the company (and thus not an asset), but the delivery firms were not at that point interested in picking up because they'd not been paid for previous work (I can't remember how that got sorted).
From memory the receivers have the obligation to minimise losses, and facing a lot of claims for packages that have been delayed/lost isn't going to do that.
But being on the companies premises could make it a sticky point! I suppose it has do do with who actually owns the package and access rights to gain ownership so they'd be able to sit on them until a nice deal was made to allow access as otherwise it would be trespass?
It will be either ther sender or the recipient, depending on the terms of the purchase contract. At no point will title pass to the carrier.
According to the radio, customers "might have to collect them from the distribution centre"
According to the radio, customers "might have to collect them from the distribution centre"
That's going to be...fun.
IIRC Citylink don't have that many depots and little or no facilities for people to collect from the depot (no ability to deal with more than a few people at a time, and from what I've heard they've not been great at that), so it'll likely be utter chaos, especially if the packages aren't at the nearest depot to the addressee.
Rentokil will book a £40m loss on the deal, adding to the scores of other writedowns taken on the parcels business since 2006, when it was acquired as part of a £210m takeover of Target Express.
I remember when Target was a private firm. Top end of the market - I never used them as they wouldn't do the price - but they were the top performing carrier at the time. Usual British Business tale - private business owners take the cash and run. Inept corporate owners make a total hash and a few years later it's gone.
How anyone makes money in deliveries I know not. I send a lot of parcels and how DPD does it for the price I'll never know. Not only did they beat my last carrier, they do everything pre-noon at the next day at no extra cost. In the main pretty good, but have wobbles every so often (as they all do).
I avoid any carrier that also does domestic internet deliveries. They are a nightmare, as so many people are out or on floor 10 or there's no parking. It's no wonder they are so flaky. I certainly commiserate with those losing their jobs. It's also one less player in the market which will result in higher pricing in general. Maybe that's what's needed.
I remember when Target was a private firm. Top end of the market - I never used them as they wouldn't do the price - but they were the top performing carrier at the time. Usual British Business tale - private business owners take the cash and run. Inept corporate owners make a total hash and a few years later it's gone.
How anyone makes money in deliveries I know not. I send a lot of parcels and how DPD does it for the price I'll never know. Not only did they beat my last carrier, they do everything pre-noon at the next day at no extra cost. In the main pretty good, but have wobbles every so often (as they all do).
I avoid any carrier that also does domestic internet deliveries. They are a nightmare, as so many people are out or on floor 10 or there's no parking. It's no wonder they are so flaky. I certainly commiserate with those losing their jobs. It's also one less player in the market which will result in higher pricing in general. Maybe that's what's needed.
Yes i remember Target very well and agree with your first paragraph completely.
I like DPD personally unlike most other couriers you do not have to wait in they send you a time slot by text,and in my experience deliver in that slot, that has always been the case we me,perhaps they can do it for a good price simply by taking business from other companies based on quality of service, or and i hope not by running up huge debts and going on an expansion or bust drive.
Yes one less player in the market sadly for those employed especially hearing the news christmas day, yes it could push the price up hopefully the quality of service to,however at the moment if i could choose a courier to deliver parcels to my home address DPD would win every time. As i like the way they deliver in time slots, thus meaning i will not be waiting in for hours with no guaranteed delivery at the end.
Must admit to being surprised hearing this.......I just assumed that parcel delivery companies would be booming with the massive increase of online sales
Is it just the case that there's too many companies trying to get a slice of the pie ?
Caxton
Posts: 28,881
Comments
Rentokil Initial sells City Link for £1
Rentokil Initial has sold its "problem child" City Link parcels business for a nominal sum of £1 to Jon Moulton's private equity group, Better Capital, following five turbulent years of losses.
Rentokil will book a £40m loss on the deal, adding to the scores of other writedowns taken on the parcels business since 2006, when it was acquired as part of a £210m takeover of Target Express.
The group, whose other businesses include facilities management and hygiene services, announced last year that it had written off £146m on City Link, just 12 months after a previous £95m goodwill write-down.
Source Daily Telegraph April 2013.
At the same time they sold their facilities arm which provided outsourced domestics ect ect in places such as the NHS. They had that contract where i work.
think a lot of these will go belly up
this has exposed a flaw in the internet model eg free delivery
it means that the courier companies work on zero margins so just try to keep expanding to try and disguise lack of profits whilst loading up with debt
bit like amazon and tesco both full of debt
Pretty much it seems.
Sh--ty Link were also terrible for customer service and delivering.
Sorry for the employees though who might be facing 2015 without a job.:(
Talk about just wanting to get rid of the courier firm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30602326
Yes though Jon Moulton surely must have thought he could have done something with it, its been less then 2 years since they sold the firm.
The figures even with Rentokil were dire it makes you wonder what the plan was.
APC will also likely go bust in 2015.
Would be the point as its the due day for the rent and if they don't have the cash then its game over so the only option is to call in the administrators as atleast that will give you some time to clear the undlivered parcels and bring in some cash to pay off some of the debt as otherwise i'd imagine the owners could possibly sieze the vans/parcels etc on the site?
But being on the companies premises could make it a sticky point! I suppose it has do do with who actually owns the package and access rights to gain ownership so they'd be able to sit on them until a nice deal was made to allow access as otherwise it would be trespass?
Not really the law in this regard has been tried and tested a lot a fair bit.
The packages are not stock or anything, the courier has no ownership of them, hence no claim on them (nor do the receivers/administers).
At most the senders, or possibly the addressees might be asked to pay for the onward shipping by another courier.
I suspect in this instance the people who have taken over will attempt to honour the current deliveries if they wish to attempt to try and sell the company on, or simply do a deal with one of the other couriers to do a single bulk collection for delivery of the packages (or for things sent by companies such as Amazon it could be that the sender will arrange for all of their packages to be collected and resent themselves..
Either way as the packages are not an asset of the company, but are simply under the care of them, at worst I suspect it'll be a case of the delivery being delayed..
Even if a retailer has gone bust and has something you've paid for, if the company actually has the stock allocated the receivers will attempt to get it to you, as by doing so they reduce the loss (as they then don't have the debt for the cost of the goods that you've paid for added to their losses and the sale price of the stock before they went bust is likely to be higher than would be received when sold by the receivers). IIRC when HMV went bust they had a bunch of packed orders that the receivers couldn't/wouldn't touch as they were no longer the property of the company (and thus not an asset), but the delivery firms were not at that point interested in picking up because they'd not been paid for previous work (I can't remember how that got sorted).
From memory the receivers have the obligation to minimise losses, and facing a lot of claims for packages that have been delayed/lost isn't going to do that.
It will be either ther sender or the recipient, depending on the terms of the purchase contract. At no point will title pass to the carrier.
According to the radio, customers "might have to collect them from the distribution centre"
That's going to be...fun.
IIRC Citylink don't have that many depots and little or no facilities for people to collect from the depot (no ability to deal with more than a few people at a time, and from what I've heard they've not been great at that), so it'll likely be utter chaos, especially if the packages aren't at the nearest depot to the addressee.
I remember when Target was a private firm. Top end of the market - I never used them as they wouldn't do the price - but they were the top performing carrier at the time. Usual British Business tale - private business owners take the cash and run. Inept corporate owners make a total hash and a few years later it's gone.
How anyone makes money in deliveries I know not. I send a lot of parcels and how DPD does it for the price I'll never know. Not only did they beat my last carrier, they do everything pre-noon at the next day at no extra cost. In the main pretty good, but have wobbles every so often (as they all do).
I avoid any carrier that also does domestic internet deliveries. They are a nightmare, as so many people are out or on floor 10 or there's no parking. It's no wonder they are so flaky. I certainly commiserate with those losing their jobs. It's also one less player in the market which will result in higher pricing in general. Maybe that's what's needed.
Yes i remember Target very well and agree with your first paragraph completely.
I like DPD personally unlike most other couriers you do not have to wait in they send you a time slot by text,and in my experience deliver in that slot, that has always been the case we me,perhaps they can do it for a good price simply by taking business from other companies based on quality of service, or and i hope not by running up huge debts and going on an expansion or bust drive.
Yes one less player in the market sadly for those employed especially hearing the news christmas day, yes it could push the price up hopefully the quality of service to,however at the moment if i could choose a courier to deliver parcels to my home address DPD would win every time. As i like the way they deliver in time slots, thus meaning i will not be waiting in for hours with no guaranteed delivery at the end.
Is it just the case that there's too many companies trying to get a slice of the pie ?