Oddbins goes into administration

John_Pierpoint

chucky wrote: »

your fantasy story falls over quite easily.

Majestic seem to be doing extremely well - maybe it's just the Oddbins business model that's wrong and your simple theories are just, well just nonsense

Majestic tends to be based in a car friendly shed style building: disused cinema, tyre depot, garage and sells by the case/crate.

Oddbins tends to be in a traditional shop and staffed by people happy to talk about a single bottle = too much debt, rent, business rates.

Majestic seems to have made the best booze cruise offer too, with its order ahead and pay by sterling cheque arrangements in Calais and Cherbourg.

From what seems like 100 years ago:

"In '63 entrepreneur Ahmed Pochee develops a small business delivering bin-ends and oddments of wine to the restaurants and clubs of London's West End.


In the Seventies Oddbins, snapped up by new owners Dennis Ing and Nick Baile, introduces Britain to the wines of Portugal and the South of France. The company expands into Scotland, the West Country and the North West with wooden floors and wacky blackboards.


In the Eighties, Oddbins, now owned by Seagram and sporting 100 stores, becomes the first company to bring Australian wine and Ralph Steadman onto the UK high street.


Oddbins is awarded Wine Merchant of the Year at the International Wine Challenge for the first time in 1988, the first of 12 such awards.


In the Nineties, Oddbins held its first consumer Wine Fair in London. It's such a success we decide to hold two each year, with one in London and one in Edinburgh. Shops open in Calais and Dublin and '98 sees the first Oddbins Wine Fair in Ireland.


In the 21st Century, we've started the new millennium as we mean to continue by winning the Wine Merchant of the Year again in 2000 and 2001.
We celebrate by launching Oddbins.com and continue our trend-setting agenda by rediscovering Greek wine.


Managing director Simon Baile, whose father founded the company in the 1970s, said he remained optimistic for the firm, revealing that a number of potential investors had come forward to buy the business, or parts of it.
HMRC is unable to discuss specific details about its debtors due to its statutory duty of taxpayer confidentiality, but a spokesman said: "We do everything we reasonably can to support viable businesses but we have to do the right thing for the country's finances and other creditors when casting our vote."