Clinton Cards goes into Administration - Polidicks

[quote][URL]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18002413[/URL] [B] Clinton Cards goes into administration[/B] [B]Troubled retailer Clinton Cards has been placed in adminstration, after its largest supplier took steps to begin the process earlier on Wednesday.[/B] Clinton had already asked for trading in its shares to be suspended before the administration announcement. It said two of its banks sold £35m of loans to supplier American Greetings. While the banks had waived certain conditions for the loans, American Greetings had pressed for repayments that Clinton Cards could not meet. Founded in 1968, it is the UK's biggest card retailer, operating 628 Clinton shops and 139 Birthdays stores and employing more than 8,000 staff. In March, Clinton reported a loss of £3.7m for the six months to the end of January and said the outlook for 2012 was worse than previously thought. On Wednesday, it said like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of sales from shops opened or closed in the past year, fell 3.5% in the past 14 weeks compared with a year earlier. [B] Loan enforcement [/B]The company said Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland had sold its loan facilities to American Greetings. It said that although it had not breached any covenants or repayment obligations, it had been given certain temporary waivers for "technical breaches" by the banks. Clinton said it had originally believed that American Greetings would extend these waivers. "However, having secured control of the debt, American Greetings immediately informed the board that it intended to enforce the loan against the company," the retailer said in a statement earlier on Wednesday. "The board has concluded that because it is unable to repay the loan, it has no option but to concur with American Greetings' proposal to place the company and its subsidiaries into administration." Clinton has been restructuring its business to try and turn around its fortunes, including closing a number of Clinton and Birthdays-branded UK stores.[/quote] Sad as it is to put 8,000 jobs at risk, their cards were horribly overpriced

Here buy this card that says Happy Birthday today for only £5.99!

Holy fuck where will I get my singing Cliff Richard birthday cards now?

Not surprised. Card Factory are much cheaper for basically the same quality and there are way more of them. Shame about the lost jobs and empty storefronts though.

I had no idea what this was and thought it was clinton moving back into the political sphere before I read the article

i didnt realise people still used clinton cards ever

Photo of my high street a month and a half ago [t]http://i.imgur.com/NsBA2.jpg[/t] Notice the store on the far right (kind of hard to see) Photo of my high street now [t]http://i.imgur.com/VOmDG.jpg[/t]

My job is in danger but honestly I'm not too bothered. The Clinton cards I work at is a ghost town half the time. A competitor Card Factory opened literally 10 steps away from our store which has much cheaper cards. :v:

I thought this was going to be about greeting cards and birthday cards themed around Bill Clinton :v:

Just after my birthday too :v: glad I got one of their last cards!

Fucking moonpig :'(

Oh I had no idea what this was, I thought it was a Bill Clinton card game played by members of the Obama administration or something.

[QUOTE=Occlusion;35890357]Fucking moonpig :'([/QUOTE] [img]http://www.bangingtunes.com/img/user/posts/mattcapitani_birthday_cartoon_humour.jpg[/img] [I]Oh yes, Moonpig offers a mindboggling choice of cards. [/I] All of my rage.

Better go buy some condolences cards and give them to staff.