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zccax you do know leases have break clauses right? Or was it stated these don't have them?
Smartie you sound ridiculous and spiteful today, not like someone offering advise. Where is your usual humour?
Daniel your negatives are noted, are you not able to give us analysis on the brighter side sometimes? You seem quite knowledgeable and the truth is we know the score already and can smell doom too.
Anything can happen really. The majority of the people who invested here recently know the score, it's a gamble hinged on just one man and his intentions. I have personally invested what I can live with if it disappears even though this is not the outcome I want.
This said I do not believe one can call this a mad bet in good conscience, as the factors at play can be compelling (for a gamble). There has also been the issue of the BoD who have suddenly painted a worse than gloomy picture when just two months ago the news from them was encouraging. All in all, its been exciting and fatigue and decisions may be made and changed as the situation evolves.
This board has been quite interesting, especially lately with more people speaking with the benefit of reason than sounding spiteful or repeating 'I told you so'. The battle will end one way or another and we shall live to fight another day.
I think I am a bit more confident in this. This will end up in court if BoD does not engage MA.
With all the offers made by MA, BoD not engaging, BoD seeking deal to wipe our SH, MA being massive SH, the tone of that SPD letter. I think a case has been made already. MA’s team with this letter has made BoD look quite corrupt and they will be forced to defend themselves now.
It’s in that defence that our salvation lies.
You're right DC, April 18th is a lifetime away. How about using the court to buy time? Surely the news of being wiped out should cause serious concerns and justification for a 30% holder who has offered £150M already. Is this not an option?
This battle is not nearly over, pistols are only being put aside for machine guns to do their jobs while RPG's are being oiled. MA will either;
Make a matching, superior or sweeter offer that cannot be refused without looking insane and vindictive or
Play for time inorder to bid lower using every tool he has including the courts. As a 30% shareholder, he surely must be justified to challenge a decision that will wipe him out (and us all by the way). Shouldn't matter if he wins but by the 2nd hearing, he should have all the time he needs.
My worry is that he has a team that can't file notices right and i wonder what other mistakes they're planning to make. Unless MA backs down, he can bulldoze his way through this. And no, i don't expect him to throw all his money in here but same applies with the other lenders who are soon going to start questioning their support for this BoD and start looking at working with MA.
I find it strange that we are in doom already and people on here still predict same doom and feel like Nostradamus. I think every ignoramus is capable of that now. It's a bit like telling a man to see the sky, all he has to do is look up and see it and needs no direction.
Everyone in this knows its a gamble and has accepetd all outcomes in advance but hope for one. What is more valuable on here therefore (and i am not shutting anyone up) is to discuss the unseen reasons of a possible alternative outcome. The reasons why this may not be the end. Debenhams is a gamble and the sort of advise you give here is not the sort you give on stable companies. If one bets on football, why would you warn them of the possibility of a red card, do you think they don't know? Yet one is able to reason that per chance it is possible that team A's resolve to avoid relegation might propel them to win a stronger team B.
While i admit that the position is weak now i see light at the end of this tunnel. Todays news was hard but panic contributed a lot and most of it because of a BoD that won't be open.There are still possibilities here. This fight is now a personal thing and pride comes with it. Can BoD really torch the house just to keep MA away? Will commmon sense not creep in from some quarter at some point? Can MA Match £200M, will BoD keep uping the figure? What if rent is payed (some say it's next week)? There are still numerous what ifs including what if it all ends on monday.
My knowledge is limited but some on the bear side here can actually engage more constructively (their bear point noted) by looking at this differently. It just makes no sense sending out a million posts saying "we told you so." It is true what you say here won't change the outcome but so it was with what you said in the past, the outcome will be what it is. This game is still on and if i have't used up my gambling pot, today would have been a great day to buy at 1.2.
My biggest fear here is that all this revolves around just one man and his intentions, MA.
It seems MA gets more attractive with every move made by either side. Very soon he's attain ultimate messiah status having managed to position himself as an alternative to every possible disaster being cooked up by incompetence. He'll get this one way or another, let's just hope its the way that benefits us.
WOW, what's going on here. Isn't this panic? Is there any new info to support this? Will just stay and enjoy the ride. Still hopeful.
The debate arises because we have a BoD that run this like a family business by being miserly with information. That said, I think Debs is way bigger than rent.
Rejecting £150M from MA will be quite hard to justify. Hard to justify may also include choosing administration with such an offer on the table as decision will clearly look personal. BoD may just be stalling or still deep in other negotiations, the later being most likely. MA clearly will have trojan horses feeding him live updates. Then again this BoD have not been known to be very vocal even when it will help them, they still seem calm. I see the possibility of their surrender or coming out with an alternative. One thing I don't see is the sort of blind shooting that leads to the end.
The people who scream run don't seem to understand that this is a gamble and that those invested all know the score. It's also a good gamble on the face of it.
There's a limit to what we know or can see hence our inability to tie things up. There's just too many gaps in the information being released and none really adds up properly. The smartie2 team are right to smell and predict doom with all the negative press, it's a common sense default safe position. The Pearl/Knigelk are equally right to be optimistic as sufficient info to tie the doom seems lacking. In all its a very healthy board on here with great humour by the way.
Everyone here knows this is a gamble that can swing either way, possible wipe-out or high rewards otherwise they would be at some safe longer term position. Even in gamble, one should know when to pull out but are we really there yet?
The major snag I see here is that a lot, if not everything seems dependant on one man, MA, and his ambitions. With all the negative press, if we hear that a Chinese company is considering Debs, we'll all be amazed at how fast the info can change despite Debs position remaining unchanged not to mention price. One can also argue that the reason we haven't seen this s because of Debs position so we are neither here nor there.
£150M is being negotiated and hasn't failed, and another on offer. The question that needs answered is ; how come the people who have seen this Debenham's toxic books are still throwing and willing to throw money at them.
Well you haven't exactly forced anyone to buy or taken consultancy payments have you? We all just hope the 2 + 2 will be 4, including smartie I suspect.
The press doesn't work like that DC, not as though they come together to decide what to write or omit, someone must want to stick in there first to increase the quality of their work irrespective of its significance. Something isn't just adding up somewhere.
It's a bit worrying that prices are what they are despite this deadline approaching, are we the only ones who know about this? Are there things that haven't been considered. There have been great cases made here which I certainly buy into but it all revolves around one man and his intentions. Let's hope the Asians might be interested also as truly Debs is their kind of prize.
I believe Pearls case is a very superior one but also appreciate Smartie as people must constantly be reminded of hell if they're working on heaven. Truth is we all know this to be a gamble. Good one I think. MA had better use that warchest.
Smartie, Perals may get it wrong as anything can happen but he sure makes very logical and calculated cases.Of the people who have spoken against him, i am yet to see a good counter to his shots save from the one about MA being able to renegotiate rents more easily when he's taken over. It's really not a democracy so even though he's a lone voice his arguements are superior and more in line with what businessmen do unless MA wants to shore up prices and off-load to reduce his loss which unlikely.