Bay Trading

[MissyA369]

Is it true that Bay Trading is closing down?

[Lore]

Nnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! they can't do that!! I haven't heard anything missy.

[fairy!]

The one in Milton Keynes has gone... but the one in Banbury is still there.  Fingers crossed it's not true... I couldn't cope after Pilot just went down the pan :-(

[Lore]

Pilot's gone too? :oO

[shazzabell]

Whatever happened to Snob?

[Lore]

lol I'm here!  or so everybody tells me :o\

[Buenchico]

Bay Trading's parent company, Alexon, seems to have one of the least informative sites on the whole of the web! It ought to be the obvious place to go to look for any relevant press releases but there's nothing like that there. What it does show however, is that in the financial year ending in January 2004, Bay Trading made a profit of �3.3m but the most recent year (to January 2005) saw them make a loss of �0.7m. This means that their future must be in doubt. (Alexon aren't slow to shut down failing stores. They owned the former Allders group).

As I can't find anything in the archives of the business press to suggest that Bay Trading is closing down, I expect that some stores will struggle on for a bit but watch out for them being re-branded as 'Alex & Co', 'Eastex', 'Dash', 'Ann Harvey', 'Kaliko' or 'Minuet Petit'. These are all brands owned by Alexon and they won't be slow to replace Bay Trading with these brands if they think that they'll make more profit.

If you want a definitive answer, try contacting Alexon directly:
Alexon Group P.l.c.
40-48 Guildford Street
Luton, Bedfordshire LU1 2PB.
01582 723131 or 01582 399864

Hoping this helps,

Chris

[nicola_red]

The Mancs store is still open and showing no sign of disappearing, I was in there this morning.  I would be surprised if they rebranded as Ann harvey or Kaliko as they're very different sorts of clothes.

[MissyA369]

Ok, I have just found out that bay Trading is NOT closing down, as one of my friends asked a store worker and she said no. :)

I'm sorry if I caused any unnessecary stress lol.

[lucy990]

hi,
I work in Bay in Bristol, one of the biggest stores.
We have been told very little officially.
However, I'm friends with the area manager so I know more than most.
Basically, the group Alexon had all these companies. At the end of the financial year they worked out all their losses, Bay came out the worst and I think it had about 1 or 2% greater loss than the others. then what alexon did was shift ALL their debt onto Bay so they wouldn't loose any of the other companies (god knows why they didnt just loose ann harvey instead!?) Therefore Bay was in a ridiculous amount of debt, �27 mil I think. Following this, its insurance company, which funds for the stock (Bay gets the stock from suppliers and pays them when theyve sold it) they have refused to give the company Bay any insurance credit to get stock. So it has been put into administration and now is no longer ANYTHING to do with alexon (we've been made to take down ANYTHING to do with Alexon in our shop). The administrators and people involved sre trying to get buyers for Bay, however as of yet, they've got nothing, only interest. As a result of this, I was working the other day and we've been getting calls from HQ saying that the stock suppliers might come in and take their stock back, as we've not sold it... So things aren't looking good. Chances are Bay will close soon and even more people will be out of work... :(

Hope that clears a few things up for people :)

Oh, and all the new stock thats coming in, especially jewellery is being stupidly marked down so it can be sold! Some of it's really nice aswell. Go buy while you still can :)