The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
The following extract was taken from Twitter (4 May 2022), posted by the owner of the Cardiff resturant - Cora. According to the Telegraph, the post was addressed to John Biles.
====================================================
Dear Mr *****,
'I wanted to firstly thank you for choosing my restaurant for your meal tonight, and I understand you had the biggest bill we've ever had on one table'.
'Unfortunately througout the evening I was made aware that your party's behavior was inappropriate towards lily, who runs front of house.
'She has told me that- as a 22yr old girl- she was talked down to, disrespected, and touched unwantedly by members of your group'.
====================================================
I'm guessing the £1,000 bill was picked up by Ince Group. I guess that's fair, given how much cash they have rolling from Arden. Good to see them spending the money wisely!
Just seen your post; truly shocking behaviour; i'm struggling to have belief in a professional company that acts so unprofessionally. And the bill just shows how the partners are profiting and not all shareholders
The usual lazy, twitter deep analysis and utter banality, that one expects from certain posters on this board. Lets take the some of the issues one by one
1) We only know that SOME Ince employees were in attendance. There is no evidence that anyone from Ince was involved in the alleged behaviour, in fact the letter to John Biles makes it quite clear that he was not the culprit, thus removing one from the equation.
2) Whatever occurred there was no police involvement and no suggestion that anything that required police involvement had occurred.
3) As you say you are GUESSING who picked up the bill. But don't let that stop you making unsubstantiated superposition.
4) I would bet most of you have been at a table where one (and it was identified as only one guest) has be less polite/respectful than you or others at the table would be, I know I have. I certainly would not be happy to be judged by the behaviour of the worst people I have ever socialised with.
5) The restaurant in question has only 12 covers and was opened on the back of a crowd funding campaign in January this year. This campaign raised GBP 35,000 and the restaurant only opens 4 days a week. This was never going to be an economic preposition unless it operated at full capacity all of the time. Which based on its booking records it was not. It would seem that the publicity has been very good for their bookings over the next 3 months. Make of that what you will.
The fake moral outrage here is laughable.
erratum/johnbiles;
ouch what selective balderdash bile; without dissecting your selective comments, there are only 2 things to consider here.
1) it was an Ince do, a do and circumstances that rather than refuting outright, Ince internally raised an investigation into
2) irrespective of social nuances/interpretations/standpoints, for a professional company not to act professionally at all times when associated to the name of such a company, suggests to prospective clients/investors, it is far from.
Nothing in your post alters that.
@damofarl, well noted that you will not take on any of the specific comments. Here are a couple more based on your latest, that you might wish to consider when you move on from analysing Daily Mirror headlines.
1) There is no evidence it was a works do we only know that 2 Ince employees were in attendance and neither have been personally accused of the alleged behaviour.
2) It is entirely normal for the independent directors to launch an investigation when their company is linked to negative press. This is PR 101. Don't explain, don't complain, investigate.
3) Once again you have no evidence that anyone from Ince acted with anything other than the highest social standards.
4) It is asinine that you think this will have any impact on the the level of business done by Ince (whatever that level maybe). The whole incident is already in the dustbin of history having been used to wrap last weeks fish dinner.
This post by erratum pretty much confirms my suspicions that he/she is an insider trying to defend the indefensible
Adrian Biles and Father were at the table. The father stepped down not long after daily mail article. See here. There is no doubt that Adrian + Father were at the dinner. This is not hearsay. This has been confirmed by insiders. You do not step down from a company immediately after an incident if you are innocent because else you will be misidentified as being guilty. You do not stay in a company immediately after an incident if you are advised by the board that your position is untenable. The 'optics' of a stepdown, such as his, is an effort by the board to 'put to bed' the story. Even if the individual and incident are not named together, it implicitly does the PR work for you, all things being equal.
Michael Fabricant attempted to articulate this dynamic in a, now retracted, tweet last week.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/feature-content/exclusive-ince-boss-john-biles-resigns-after-restaurant-allegations#:~:text=John%20Biles%2C%20Ince's%20head%20of,the%20misbehaving%20party%20as%20Biles.
Roll on Friday ..... lol, retracted tweets from Michael Fabricant of all people. Lots of hard facts there then.
Whatever qualities one might draw from Michael Fabricant and his headpiece, the point is simply that you don't resign / not show up when there's a question as to who the guilty party is.
@tshaw2 ..... are you certain this is what happened ?
A little fact checking would tell you that the emailed announcement of Mr J Biles retirement went out to staff before 9.30 am on the morning after the restaurant incident (is it possible it was a retirement party ?) and long before the tweet made it in to the newspapers. The letter which was tweeted out was addressed to Mr. J Biles and explicitly absolves him of the behaviour that was objected to. I do think people on this board need to be very careful about stating as fact things that they are guessing or supposing, especially when tied to named individuals.
ettarum, the letter was not addressed to Adrian nor John? The first letter after the word Dear shows an M. It didn't absolve anyone.
Mr does not relate to anyone more specifically than a man. Every man at that table would warrant such a prefix.
sorry I thought I did not need to fill in all the details .... Try Mr Biles
You are in agreement, that the letter addressed to 'Mr Biles' relates to the dinner that he 'chose' for 'his' dinner. It could not be clearer, that whomever it was addressed to was a participant that evening (as would be a natural function of the addressed being the subject matter of the email). The letter though does not absolve him of any responsibility of the behaviour as you have twice suggested. It merely says 'your group'.
@tshaw2 .... would you like to tell me what took place and who did what and when as I don't know and clearly you do ?
Would you also like to refer to the follow up tweet from the owner where he says on reflection he overreacted and perhaps you might also like to acknowledge that Mr. Biles's retirement was announced before the newspaper coverage and that he did not resign over the "incident" as you appear to be suggesting.
It should be asking you if you are in agreement that it addressed to Mr. Biles .... just 5 mins ago you were telling me it was not.
I said that on the information we have we do not know who the letter was addressed to. The prefix Mr is universal for male identifying humans. I have said Adrian and John were present. You subsequently said that it is addressed to Biles and by extension he was present. I am saying, on the basis of that, I am delighted you concur that he was present.
I believe that the pontification around crude behaviour at a dinner in Cardiff is an inferior priority for discussion than shareholder destruction born out of poor quality judgement (crude behaviour in a restaurant is of course consistent with that). I believe that there is a case to be answered for in the disingenuous language in the RNS as I laid out this morning.
The article in Rollonfriday on 6 May (link provided by tshaw2 below) was already disconcerting, but some of the comments - apparently from former Ince employees - are even more so.
"The article in Rollonfriday on 6 May (link provided by tshaw2 below) was already disconcerting, but some of the comments - apparently from former Ince employees - are even more so."
Those comments on RollOnFriday, Facebook, Google and 'Review Solicitor' paint a terrible story. I wish I'd come across that material before investing here. When *all* reviews are terrible, there is something wrong with the company. It seems that the CEO has no idea how to fix it or is totally out of touch. Perhaps he should step aside for somebody else.
How the heck will they attract new staff?
Maybe erratum can join them lol. I am sure he already works for them in some sort of capacity. Pure speculation on my part of course
@Contrarian123 - You are most welcome to your opinions/speculations, they are of course wrong but you are most welcome to them.