Retail news

• Patisserie Valerie had nearly £10m in unreported loans

  14-10-2018 19:19
  The company had used up two separate bank credit lines without the board’s knowledge
  
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• Patisserie Valerie boss says £20m black hole in accounts is 'nightmare'

  14-10-2018 13:32
  Luke Johnson has agreed to lend the struggling cake chain £20m of his own moneyLuke Johnson, the serial entrepreneur behind Patisserie Valerie, described the cake chain’s near-collapse as a nightmare, as he said the company had run up nearly £10m in secret overdrafts.Patisserie Valerie’s finance director was arrested last week, after the company stunned the stock market by revealing it had found “significant, and potentially fraudulent, accounting irregularities&rdq
  
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• Patisserie Valerie boss describes £20m accounting black hole as a 'nightmare'

  14-10-2018 13:32
  Luke Johnson has agreed to lend the struggling cake chain £20m of his own moneyLuke Johnson, the serial entrepreneur behind Patisserie Valerie, described the cake chain’s near-collapse as a nightmare, as he said the company had run up nearly £10m in secret overdrafts.Patisserie Valerie’s finance director was arrested last week, after the company stunned the stock market by revealing it had found “significant, and potentially fraudulent, accounting irregularities&rdq
  
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• Beaten by Amazon and Walmart, Sears faces the end after 125 years

  14-10-2018 09:00
  The company, once a staple of the American lifestyle, is expected to file for bankruptcy after years of losses “I don’t understand the point of Sears, I just buy everything online,” said 23-year-old Lyft driver Shannon Dickey as we pull up to the abandoned storefront of Sears that sits at the top of Ross Park Mall, nine miles north of downtown Pittsburgh “I think their old catalogs are cool, but I just don’t understand the point of Sears.”Founded in 1893, Sear
  
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• ‘New’ House of Fraser brings new problems for customers

  14-10-2018 08:00
  From the fear of losing the balance on a gift card to not getting a refund for returns, we ask: can you trust the store?Is it safe to order online at the “new” House of Fraser, now owned by Sports Direct? One customer who bought £380 of goods has found himself in a similar ordeal to the thousands of unhappy customers who lost out when the “old” company went into administration.Harps Singh, from Birmingham, paid £380 for three pairs of designer jeans in late Se
  
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• What price the wisdom of Luke Johnson, when his own company tanks? | Catherine Bennett

  14-10-2018 06:59
  The Patisserie Valerie chief should look to himself before lecturing others again‘Unfortunately,” Luke Johnson wrote recently, “financial illiteracy permeates society from top to bottom. Too many ordinary people do not understand mortgages, pensions, insurance, loans or investing.”Johnson, the entrepreneur whose biggest asset, Patisserie Valerie, now needs bailing out, was being generous. Even after the 2008 financial crisis confirmed that corporate incompetence warranted
  
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