PWC is managing the process, we are told.
Asset stripped and shuttered.
Crunch time: Maplin in talks to sell the business
Ailing gadget souk Maplin is locked in eleventh-hour talks with a potential buyer of the chain but the company may be placed into the hands of an administrator if an agreement cannot be reached. Private equity owner Rutland Partner, which bought Maplin for £85m in 2014, is understood to be negotiating with interested parties …
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 12:29 GMT Dr Who
Re: PWC is managing the process, we are told.
What are you talking about? Maplin would never have had any assets to strip. They have basically no cash, large debts and crippling store rental commitments. There is the stock, but that's basically worthless if you try and sell it in bulk. The only reason you'd buy Maplin is for the dividends, and as dividends can only be paid out of profit, there won't have been many of those in the last twenty years.
Montagu bought Maplin for £244 million and sold for £85 million to Rutland who will be lucky to achive a token tenner for a sale. I don't think either Montagu or Rutland will be congratulating themselves on their spectacular corporate raiding skills.
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 16:11 GMT Red Ted
Re: PWC is managing the process, we are told.
The issue is that when the company goes in to administration, those administrators will be PWC. When the administrators start paying off company's debts, first in the queue is the administrators bill, lo and behold that is PWC.
So it's in PWC's interest for the company to go in to administration, as they'll earn more money that way.
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 12:52 GMT Hollerithevo
Sadly true
Went int here for a couple of standard items. One not in stock and clearly hasn't been in stock for months, the others £9 more than what I could get it for on ebay. Can't actually think of the last time i bought something from them. You can definitely feel the despaeration in the staff.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 21:28 GMT Christopher Rogers
Re: Sadly true
This is very accurate. I went to the nearest one a couple of weeks ago and just left feeling depressed on behalf of the staff who had the look of broken people on death row. The product range had no USP and prices didn't beat anywhere. The could plausibly close 150/160 stores and double down on the hobbist market but they would need to make their prices very keen to outdo direct from china via ebay purchases.
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 08:02 GMT YetAnotherLocksmith
Re: Sadly true
They need to lobby the government to save their business, simple as.
The government is letting the Post Office and couriers destroy the entire UK manufacturing sector, along with the middle men supplying the public, by allowing through millions of clearly tax dodging packets and parcels every year.
They are all labelled "$4 gift", despite being a 4x4 CNC router, or "sample" despite being 400 left shoes (the 400 match right shoes came through the previous day!)
No tax, no duty, no VAT, no electrical safety, nothing. But just look at the price! And free shipping.
No wonder this country is stuffed.
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 13:15 GMT Goldmember
Re: Sadly true
"by allowing through millions of clearly tax dodging packets and parcels every year."
And how exactly do you propose to police that? Open every single parcel which comes into the UK from outside of the EU? The resources are simply not available. And if they were, workarounds would be found in no time (import into Poland first, for example).
Maplin's advantage used to be knowledgeable staff and the convenience of having everything on offer, instantly, in one place. Now most of the knowledgeable staff have gone, and people are used to ordering online so aren't as likely to pay through the nose for convenience, when it comes to electronics purchases.
They're running out of options pretty rapidly.
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 13:40 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Re: Sadly true
At least all Maplin's stock is hand made in the UK not imported from China
Shops are rent seeking middlemen. The reason we have had to pay a markup to merchants for the last 1000years is that is was difficult to pop down to the spice islands for your pepper.
Now that it is as easy for the end user to buy from the chinese as manufacturer as it is for the retailer - we don't need the retailer taking a cut.
-
Sunday 25th February 2018 21:19 GMT AlbertH
Re: Sadly true
At least all Maplin's stock is hand made in the UK not imported from China
Are you mad? 90% of the rubbish they sell is cheap 'n' nasty Chinese imports that you could buy more cheaply yourself directly from China. They charge 12p for a resistor that I can buy in the Far East at 15p / 100! They lost the plot some years ago when they tried to be "Tandy". Tandy / Radio Shack went out of business because people didn't want to pay premium prices for cheap Chinese tat. Maplin failed to learn the lesson.....
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 13:03 GMT Warm Braw
Re: Edinburgh Woollen Mill?
Edinburgh Woollen Mill has been buying up bust fashion brands (including Jaeger and Austin Reed) as it plans to launch a new chain of department stores. Good luck with that in the current retail climate.
Not sure whether they're wanting to add electronics to the portfolio (which depending on which EWM subbrand is involved may include tins of shortbread, the kind of bedlinen favoured by B&B landladies, DVDs of steam trains and the kind of "country" wear worn in suburbia) or just interested in the potential retail space.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 15:24 GMT Peter2
Re: Edinburgh Woollen Mill?
Retail shops aren't automatically doomed because they are retail shops. They are doomed, because the management has a seeming imability to actually manage as much as a SWOT analysis and then taking action on the "O" and mitigation against the "T".
There is a miniscule, tiny little clothes shop locally to me that has survived many, many large chain stores around it. It survives because it caters specifically for men who work in offices who hate shopping, which is evidentely a big enough market to thrive on.
The shop has a decent selection of somewhat above average quality shirts, trousers and other "suitable for an office" clothing (in both casual and formal) at somewhat above average price, but below the price that people mutter "i'm not paying that" and go elseware. You can buy cheaper stuff online or from the ASDA clothing section down to road, which to many people ought to indicate immediate death for the company.
The pace is perpetually empty, but that's because they have what is by todays standards amazing service so your in and out in only slightly more time than a formula one pitstop. Alterations available at moderate cost if you'd like a perfect fit.
As a result, they have enough people visiting to keep them doing quite nicely.
This compared to M&S where menswear is at the back of the 999th floor, and everything is constantly moved around to make you hunt for things. Hellish shopping experiance, and the place deserves to die. Or ASDA which is full of cheap , tackily low quality stuff that falls apart after a few months.
So you can run profitably run retail shops, you just have to offer what people want to buy.
-
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 12:26 GMT Nick Ryan
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
My thoughts exactly, like various other dinosaur companies they refused to see change coming or even do anything other than attempt to disrupt it, usually at their own detriment. For example, Kodak with digital cameras or Blockbusters. Both were major players in the non-digital field but utterly failed to translate this into digital equivalents despite them having a major brand that would have carried a lot of weight in doing so.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 13:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
My thoughts exactly, like various other dinosaur companies they refused to see change coming
Well, all the investors who've sold Maplin over the past few decades (of which there are several) saw the change coming. Most, I suspect, didn't even intend to disrupt or try adapting - all they hoped was to run the company long enough to find a greater fool willing to buy it. It hasn't been conspicuously successful, but whilst PWC work their evil work, along came Edinburgh Woollen Mill, purveyors of the finest faux-Scottish tat to Japanese and American tourists.
EWM is of course where retail brands go AFTER they've died - Austin Reed, Jaeger, Peacocks, even bits of long forgotten gone-bust outfits like Rosebys and Jane Norman. I'm surprised they didn't snap up BHS, although I suppose they're waiting for Debenhams or House of Fraser to shuffle off their retail coil, or perhaps more in keeping with their previous purchases, Laura Ashley. Maybe they can keep open the Maplin stores in Windsor, Stratford Upon Avon, and Bicester "Shopping Village", and offer VAT free sales to long haul tourists? Get the Chinese manufacturers to screenprint a Union Jack on all the merchandise, and it'll fly off the shelves.
-
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 18:40 GMT GreenJimll
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
I take it you've never been in the Stratford-upon-Avon branch? Not exactly in the tourist hot spot in the town. I have been in repeatedly, but usually come out empty handed because they don't have what I want. The staff are friendly and helpful but it just can't compete against the value & convenience of likes of Amazon and eBay.
-
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 17:55 GMT Dodgy Geezer
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
...Both were major players in the non-digital field but utterly failed to translate this into digital equivalents despite them having a major brand that would have carried a lot of weight in doing so....
This is perfectly normal. It HAS to happen.
Think of the Kodak Board-Room when the issue of Digital comes up...
Junior 'Ideas-man': "I think we should invest more in this digital lark. It's the coming thing..."
Head of Chemicals and Processing: "Well, you can't have anything from my budget. We're pared to the bone as it is..."
Head of Films: "We're currently No.1 in the world for film. If I lose any budget we'll slip to No.3..."
Head of Paper: "If you invest in digital our entire business model is at risk. And I employ 2.5m people world-wide..."
Chairman: " Ok - put it on hold..."
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 13:12 GMT Andy Non
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
Even now they haven't quite grasped the idea of the internet. I tried to buy some specialist cable from their online store a few months ago and on trying to add it to my basket it insisted on me finding my "local" store (10 miles away). So I placed the order with CPC instead. I did query Maplin about this via their feedback form, but never got a reply. I can only assume they don't want my business.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 13:33 GMT Soruk
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
Having a local shop got me out of a hole last Sunday - my desktop PSU went bang on Saturday night, and Maplin was the only local outfit to have a suitable PSU in stock (PC World had the same item, same price, but no stock). If not for them it would have been a 40-mile round trip.
Icon: What my PSU did.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 17:01 GMT Lee D
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
"My PSU too, just after Xmas. Only place for a *now* replacement at a half reasonable price."
Amazon Prime Now:
Corsair CP-9020097-UK VS Series ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Power Supply Unit, 550 W,Black
(They had loads of other choices, I just picked one)
£38.52
Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L. Remove
Check out now with 2-hour delivery for £0.00
I could have it before I got home tonight, if I wanted,
Welcome to the 21st Century.
-
-
Friday 23rd February 2018 05:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
watford went belly up 2007(?), circ 2000 using "keywords" to find a product not in that "insert" a nightmare.
try hdd,Hdd,HDD,harddrive, IDE,IBM, seagate, WD.oh and hard-drive. etc
They had 1000's of items unsold in the Luton warehouse because unable to find them on the system.
Unable to look in the warehouse to find stuff as a lowly "untrusted" tech support. Knew we had items as just seen pass testing and returned to stock, trying to find it to sell argggg.
So many CCTV cameras, Nazir Jessa spend most of his day just watching shit.
-
-
-
Wednesday 21st February 2018 14:57 GMT DJSpuddyLizard
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
Having a local shop got me out of a hole last Sunday - my desktop PSU went bang on Saturday night, and Maplin was the only local outfit to have a suitable PSU in stock
Same thing with the last thing I *ever* bought from a Radio Shack store in the USA - a PSU - 15 minutes before closing time, and I wouldn't have been able to get to a "big box" store in time. Of course, the sales staff didn't know they even sold them, so I had to show them what it looked like.
Ah, Maplins, I remember the days when it was just a cardboard box I shopped at when I went to visit me granny in Westcliff.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 14:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Remnant of the 1980s
"Should have been 100% online as soon as it became practical."
There is an historical similarity to Henry's Radio. They did mail order from their shop in the Edgware Road in the 1960s. Very smart new shop stocking all manner of electronic components - like 455KHz ceramic filters. They became a must-go-to shop on visits to London - leaving Proops and Z&I with the war surplus kit market. Lasky's moved upmarket too - into hi-fi type consumer goods.
Last time I went to visit in the 1980/90s? - Henry's had gone down-market and looked just like Proops etc had in the past. They now seem to have dropped the component side of the business - following Lasky's into consumer products.
-
Tuesday 20th February 2018 11:10 GMT ForthIsNotDead
A great shame, but probably inevitable.
You can't make a bricks-and-mortar business pay by selling electronic components or novelty toys and turntables etc. There's literally nothing that I can buy at Maplins (in store or online) that I cannot buy at Amazon or eBay.
It was inevitable that they would go the way of Radio Shack in the states.
Probably their best bet now is to "store share" as Argos are now doing, moving their Argos stores into Sainsburys etc.
I'll be sad to see them go as I've spent many a time in my local Maplins browsing (and buying) all sorts of components, from printers to a CCTV system to a soldering iron to a pack of resistors. Bloody handy to be able to blast down there on a Sunday and get a 10K potentiometer for some project that I'm playing with.
But not enough to base a business on these days, unfortunately.
And my best wishes to the Maplins staff that I always found open, honest, and very helpful.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
