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I think Shein be knocking on the door to have a squiz.

To drop in that much revenue and a decent brand. It’ll probably be profitable under Shein.

Liquidity was tight at year end and inventory low. Can see why they needed the higher RCF.

I wonder if PLT can get them to net cash?

It’s apparent that Kamani exerts significant influence in this company, but is never responsible for its failures.

It should be an eventful week ahead.

Hopefully some good news for long term shareholders.

Oke,

Whilst I agree FCF is probably the most important metric, there is seasonality to working capital. In the 1H FY26, we would expect Boo to be FCF negative as it builds inventory going into 4Q. 2H FY26 it should reverse and yes I would hope Boo is FCF positive for full year.

At best we can hope for FCF neutral in guidance for FY26.

We have previously had discussions on FCF for 2H FY25 where we have looked at reported net debt, and adjusted for the office sale and equity placing. It suggested that the business still had negative cash flow it we take out the above two items in 2H FY25.

*TPG to hive off Debenhams

They obviously changed the AoA for a reason at the behest of TPG.

The question is, how does this change should Debs Group go into administration? There must be an impact.

My sense is that it is now easier for TPG to give off Debenhams to its private equity arm in the event of administration. Mgmt are now unable to sell its major brands.

Simon,

You hit nail on head. Dan signed away the brands which were wholly owned subsidiaries. There was a reason this was in AoA. This should have been a shareholder decision. Not Dan’s.

Fiduciary Duties Of Directors

In the UK, company directors have specific fiduciary duties, which are legal and ethical obligations to act in the best interests of the company. These duties are primarily outlined in the Companies Act 2006. Directors must prioritize the company's success, avoid conflicts of interest, and act with reasonable care and skill.

Key Fiduciary Duties:

Duty to act within powers:

Directors must act in accordance with the company's constitution (Articles of Association) and only use their powers for the purposes for which they were conferred.

Duty to promote the company's success:

Directors must act in a way that is most likely to promote the success of the company, considering factors like the long-term consequences of their decisions, the interests of employees, the impact on the community and environment, and the need to maintain good business relationships.

Duty to exercise independent judgment:

Directors must exercise their powers independently and not be unduly influenced by others.

Duty to exercise reasonable care, skill, and diligence:

Directors must carry out their duties with a reasonable level of competence and attention.

Duty to avoid conflicts of interest:

Directors must avoid situations where their personal interests conflict with the interests of the company.

Duty not to accept benefits from third parties:

Directors must not accept benefits from third parties that could improperly influence their decisions.

Duty to declare interest in proposed transactions:

Directors must disclose any interest they have in a proposed transaction or arrangement that the company is about to enter into.

This will pass.

Seriously?

Sounds like TPG has secured RCF against brands. The Group PLC shareholders now are effectively unsecured against the brands it use to own.

No office, no DC centres, RevB worthless. What else is there for shareholders when TPG now have priority over brands if it goes into admin.

Seen this play many times. Normally banks securing against property. Equity holders invest in property, then banks take it. In this case, lenders secured against the hard assets. And the Group PLC is paying 7.3% above Base Rate. Shareholders gets screwed if this goes bad.

BoD are seriously incompetent.

It is clear that Kamani is not going to step down next week following this tone deaf post on social media that this will pass.

I am staggered by how the BoD are enchanted thy Kamani to what can only be described as Folkloric.

This has a whiff of Neil Woodford. Retail investors put life savings and retirement pots into this, yet BoD reside over a catalogue of questionable choices. They are not fulfilling the first requirement of being a Director.

I hope Ashley goes scorched earth. I rather the largest shareholder in Boo making decisions. Chairman is a chump.

Delusional. Retail investors have lost a lot of money. He resided over this.

Doesn’t sound like he is stepping down.

Ashley is ramping up pressure to force Kamani not to put his name on ballot paper next week. I hope it works. Otherwise just offer him a seat on BoD.

I believe shareholders deserve an explanation why it refused Frasers much cheaper finance offer.

This message board be more interesting in terms of discussion when mgmt actually tell us what the strategy is and give us some numbers.

In the meantime….

The only reason I will vote for Kamani and Kane is if Ashley was on BoD. That would be an interesting dynamic of heavyweights.

Otherwise, I’ll be voting my ballot paper Against on multiple resolutions as soon as it lands in my brokerage inbox. I will judge Dan accordingly following the earnings call.

Wayfair started out as a pure marketplace model. It now has its own fulfilment (Castlegate) which offers faster and cheaper delivery for third party, plus lower returns rate. Wayfair is now opening physical large format stores.

A blue print for Debs?

I'm not a big believer in the marketplace model long-term for Debenhams. Yes it is capital light, but the Debs brands deserves more.

When Kamani bought Debs, he put Dan in charge with no budget. He had no warehouse to do the inventory based model (i.e., distributing on behalf of third party vendors) and no working capital to buy inventory. All he had was an excellent brand. Therefore, he adopted the eBay business model where Debs is just the intermediary connecting buyer and seller.

I ultimately see Debs strategy evolving. It will graduate to having an inventory based model. This is the Wayfair business model.

It will then look at purchasing its own inventory and doing consumer credit as an e-tailer. This is the Very business model.

It will then partner with a third party and bring back Debs as bricks-and-mortar.

It needs to be careful not to damage the Debs brand with low quality third party marketplace vendors who do not honour prompt refunds or have low quality goods.

It they can stabilise cash flow, I suspect they will pivot Debs away from being a marketplace model.

Very Group seem to be doing a respectable job at it.

https://www.theverygroup.com/investors/results-reports-and-presentations/

They managed to persuade TPG Angelo Gordon to give them £175m at 11.3% for 3 years.

They need to convince the institutional equity investors now.