Evans Cycles to shed 300 jobs and put shop staff on zero-hours contracts

Which takeover are we talking about for when they were profitable ? I thought the whole reason they ended up with Ashley was theyd saddled themselves with too much debt due to escalating property rents on their physical stores.

Indeed ... didn't the Ashley takeover happen because they were in (or about to enter) administration?

No, the debts were related to the purchase price and private equity structure.

They owed Specialized nearly 3.9million when Ashley bought them,theres plenty of news commentary from the time of the sale that the business was being squeezed by online retailers, downturn in high street shopping,increasing rents,and their 2017 results were poor and showing a decline & theyd replaced their CEO to no effect several times in that period.

I think digging into it, the profitability tag came from the administrators who stated most of the stores were in profit,but that doesnt mean the business was profitable overall.

I should have said 'what lead to a sale then administration situation' perhaps rather than just 'debts', there was more to it than the profits vs costs, but I'm not an accountant with the full picture.

I remember when Evans used to be a bit higher-end than Halfords.  I think I'd probably prefer to go to Halfords, now.

brooksby wrote:

I remember when Evans used to be a bit higher-end than Halfords.  I think I'd probably prefer to go to Halfords, now.

Maybe Evans' downfall, lots of lovely (expensive) premises, whilst Halfords make do with shabby warehouses on retail parks. TBH, until just before the pandemic, wondering into my nearest Halfords, I thought the place was doomed. It had an air of abandonment about it, like Woolworths at the end.

But the pandemic has been a shot in the arm for Halfords. Ashley meanwhile started out by spinning it into a PR disaster from which he had to backpedal in haste, and after that seems to have failed to catch the wave. Just as every 30+ adult on furlough was buying a proper bike, he'd stuffed Evans up to the gills on unsold ToysRUs liquidation stock. And having binned the customer relationship now he's bent on burning the only capital left in the business, its staff. Everything else is on hock.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

My guess is he may eventually integrate Evans into House of Fraser department stores for the more upmarket cycling brands. He's been quietly building stakes in upmarket fashion brands, for example he now owns large stakes in quality brands such as Mulberry and Hugo Boss, and don't see why he wouldn't do similar in cycling apparel and bikes themselves.

"Upmarket"?  Have you been in a House of Fraser since he bought them?? 

I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you're argument. With the lockdown(s) cycling has seen a surge in new bike sales. Halfords have reported massive profits due to bike sales. And many independent bike shops have sold out of many bikes. It really has been a great time for cycling retailers. So this move shows Mike Ashley is just a greedy c*** who cares not a damn about his workforce as the SportDirect model of working shows . He only cares about money and I would encourage anyone looking at buying a bike or cycking related products to go to their LBS or at least an online retailer that doesn't treat its workforce with such disdain.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Complain all you like, but without Mike Ashley no one would be working for Evans Cycles today, because it wouldn't exist

That's like thanking a mugger for only robbing you, and not killing you. Some real Stockholm Syndrome thinking there.

Sure, but Ashley's actions are not justified by the fact that Evans would have gone into administration. Suppose an OAP is unable to cross the road, am I justified if I mistreat them as I try to help them across?

So it's OK to exploit the vulnerable? Because they are vulnerable, you hold all the cards, so anything goes? There's no other yardstick.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

.......

Er no, Evans staff are free to leave whenever they like. They aren't be robbed or coerced into working there. I take the point about cycling profit and lockdowns, but Mike Ashley took over the chain prior to Covid and planned these organisational changes ,including no doubt absorbing the Evans brand into the wider Frasers group.

If there's a hole in legislation then let's campaign to abolish zero hours contracts, but let's not pretend that Evans would have been just fine without Ashley's takeover.

And with Ashley's take over Evans is not fine. So what exactly does Ashley bring to the party? Seems not much but takes a lot away...

In other news, Philip Green is a top geezer

Nigel Garrage wrote:

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Well those 300 jobs that are going... they wouldn't have existed in the first place if he hadn't taken them over. They were entering administration (he took them over in 2018).

This really isn't a difficult concept. If the business didn't exist, those people wouldn't be employed at all.

So those 300 people should be grateful for a couple of extra years of crap working conditions and uncertain prospects, as he continues to asset strip to add to his already considerable wealth at the expense of a viable company?

From what I remember Evans HO was top-heavy and loss-making wheres the individual stores and webshop was healthy. Ashley took over the company and  a mere three years later the company can no longer support its frontline staff. Not a great achievement.

Is that really all he brings to the party? A parasite is still a parasite, even if it doesn't immediately kill its host.

You ain't selling this as anything like a success to me....

Nigel Garrage wrote:

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The point is that he isn't asset stripping anything. He's taking an already bankrupt brand/chain of shops, running it as a going concern, and absorbing it into his stable of brands. Now he might run it badly (and I agree that it's a mistake to fill it full of tat), but that is an entirely different matter.

It's nothing like asset stripping (as I know it anyway), which would involve taking the business and flogging off its individual assets for an overall profit, or loading it with debt to pay yourself a huge and unssutainable dividend.

Now, for example, if someone bought Frasers group (Sports Direct in old speak), and flogged off each brand individually - and the sum of those brands (which you can see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frasers_Group#Brands) fetched more than the enterprise value of the entire group, leaving a bankrupt mess of empty stores, you could legitimately call it asset stripping. 

Try leeching then, but it amounts to the same thing.

I'm still trying to work out exactly why you defend this parasite, or how his behaviour in any way is in the employee's or for that matter the national interest.

This turd is not to be congratulated, and no matter how much you sprinkle glitter over him, he is still a parasitic turd.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

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Why am I defending him? Because I think he's been unfairly maligned in this article and by the press generally. Nowhere here, for example, does it mention his new £100m staff incentive scheme or the way he's built his business from nothing but a £10,000 loan into a multi-billion goliath.

He has to compete with business like Amazon and the other internet players on a completely un-level playing field, where he pays a gigantic amount in business rates and tax compared to the "new" economy companies (who also happen to have worse working conditions, but guess what - they don't seem to bother you).

I'll be honest - a lot of it feels like middle class sneering and jealousy against a working class man who done good.

No one denied he's done quite well-thank-you-very-much

I still have to understand how what he has done here has benefited the employees of evans.

• Front line redundancies - check
• Reduction in working conditions - check
• changing contracts to low or zero-hours - check.

And he's not working class. Those victims of his sharp practices are, but he is not.

I'd admire him had he turned the business around - the stores and webshop were viable - but he hasn't done that, he's kept the name and trashed what any business actually is - the people that work to make it a success - for his own personal gain.

No, I don't admire people with money automatically for their money. Many are w*nkers. Here is a case in point.

And I laughingly note the lame attempt at a dig at classism, as if you can actually discern the class of the people who disagree with you and assert that that is why. It's almost as if you're .... sneering classist.

Have a great day Nigel, I think we're done

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Jenova20 wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Complain all you like, but without Mike Ashley no one would be working for Evans Cycles today, because it wouldn't exist

That's like thanking a mugger for only robbing you, and not killing you. Some real Stockholm Syndrome thinking there.

Er no, Evans staff are free to leave whenever they like. They aren't be robbed or coerced into working there.

It's not as simple as that. For starters it's much harder to get a job at the moment because we're still under lockdown. Anyone who leaves voluntarily can't even claim for JSA atm because they chose to leave. This is a huge change to their employment, and while they should leave if they don't like it, Mike Ashley should absolutely be condemned for the treatment of his staff.

Jenova20 wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Jenova20 wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Complain all you like, but without Mike Ashley no one would be working for Evans Cycles today, because it wouldn't exist

That's like thanking a mugger for only robbing you, and not killing you. Some real Stockholm Syndrome thinking there.

Er no, Evans staff are free to leave whenever they like. They aren't be robbed or coerced into working there.

It's not as simple as that. For starters it's much harder to get a job at the moment because we're still under lockdown. Anyone who leaves voluntarily can't even claim for JSA atm because they chose to leave. This is a huge change to their employment, and while they should leave if they don't like it, Mike Ashley should absolutely be condemned for the treatment of his staff.

Hi, former Evans employee here. I saw the whole of the takeover, from the uncertainty of the company to Ashley and his lackeys coming in and changing everything. Just to address a couple of things our good, uninformed friend Nigel said.

SD taking over Evans was good. It saved jobs, and for the most part nothing changed. Cut to the beginning of the pandemic, where they rolled out new till systems and a website, as well as wiping the old system, orders made before the new system came into place, and all the emails we had sent and received in the years prior. All gone.

A lot of customers didn't understand why we were having such a headache, and confusion led to frustration, as we also had to stop doing refunds due to SD's new policy of "credit or swap". As an added bonus, the times where we COULD do a refund, if it was a weekend when the retail support staff at head office were not in, we simply could not refund the customer, as the tills physically would not let us. As you can imagine, customers got very angry, understandably.

As for the website, whoever designed it didn't seem to factor in overselling, which led to thousands of people innocently assuming they could buy a bike, such as a Marlin or an Emonda, only for us to then tell them that the bike would not be coming for a matter of months, if they were lucky. However, customers had to then jump through numerous hoops to try and get their money back, if they ever did get their money back. Before I left, I knew of at least one person who had been waiting nearly 6 months for a refund on a bike that simply would not be arriving.

To mention a comment that Nigel made, "I give the OAP full information about the journey and its costs" - I welcome any corrections if I am misinformed, but we had no idea about the new tills, the new website, the zero hour contracts, or the original Evans head office team being made redundant.

I feel like Nigel is some weird fan of Ashley, or an alternative account for Ashley to try and defend himself. Have you been blind to what he's done to past businesses? Have you seen the state of Sports Direct, and what he did to them during furlough? If not, I strongly suggest you read this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/03/sports-direct-managers-...

I spent over two years at my store, made some of the closest friends and used to love my job. The past 8 months really showed how little Ashley cares about the staff who keep him going, to the point where I lost the love of riding my bike. I'm disappointed that you're defending him, Nigel. Unless you worked for Evans whilst all this has happened, and you've witnessed another side of the story, I think you should keep your mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard.

Quote:

Or do you think he just loves going around pissing people off and losing money?

Ask the Newcastle fans that question.

Stolen Goat and Universal Colours both have ex-Evans staffers (I think the UC range was actually launched as a -pricey- Sigma Sport semi-independent brand, much like Kalf was at Evans) so check them out. I've got two Pinnacle bikes, and they were both fantastic value and remain really well thought-out machines years later.

I don't own anything from them but I love stolen goat, I'll check out universal colours, thanks for the suggestion. Obviously pinnacle bikes don't immediately become trash, I just can't see them ever developing a new product with the same impact.

+1 for Stolen Goat and Universal Colours ✊
Happy the Pinnacles are doing well for you too.