Retail Day
Retail Week, today
Dyas Straits
No news yet on what’s going to happen to Robert Dyas, but the noises are positive that the homewares retailer can be saved by administration, either by a management buyout or a debt for equity swap.
I hope it survives. Robert Dyas is a really useful shop and built its success on being in the sort of handy locations - back streets in central London or home counties market towns - where people tend to find themselves popping out for a packet of screws or some bin liners.
There is still a sound business there but the issue is the debt it has taken on, a hangover of the private equity boom in which it was taken over by Luc Vandevelde and Roger Holmes’ Change Capital in 2003. The deal that’s being talked about will effectively hand control of the business to the banks, backing the management, but that’s better than administration.
What is heartening about this story is that - with the help of a judiciously leaked letter from Holmes to the Sunday Telegraph - Lloyds Banking Group appears to realise that sending the business into administration will be no good to anyone. As a bank backed by the taxpayer, it is absolutely right that it only sends businesses under as a last resort.
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