Why have we never been bought by billionaire?

[xerxes]

He didnt have controlling interests in either of those businesses so no, he didnt sell either of them at the right time.

He sold his interests at the right time. Fact. Your ability to lose an argument is unfortunate, your ability to keep on doing so, careless.

[ratcatcher]

He sold his interests at the right time. Fact. Your ability to lose an argument is unfortunate, your ability to keep on doing so, careless.

 

So yet again you move the posts in a vain effort to appear correct.

 

You've gone from him selling the businesses to now just selling his interests.

 

But you're still wrong and even more careless.

 

Spare a thought for the descendants of Harry Askham this week as more than thirty members of the Moores family share out the proceeds from the sale of the Littlewoods football pools business.

Trevor Hemmings, the entrepreneur who owns Blackpool Tower, is paying £161m for the group's leisure operations: pools, spot-the-ball and scratchcards.

Harry Askham worked as a telegraphist in Manchester with John Moores in 1923 when the pair were setting up the pools business. They decided not to use their own names for fear of losing their day jobs and agreed to call the company Littlewoods. The business had an unpromising beginning: the first dividend was just £2.12s and the operation lost money. Harry Askham lost heart and sold out - the business equivalent of filling in a winning combination and then not bothering to post the coupon.

Cecil Moores then joined his brother and by the end of the 1928 football season, the company had begun to turn in the kind of profits that made its founder a millionaire by the late 1930s. It was a brilliant business: counting the money and checking coupons was left to local collectors. Littlewoods hardly had to do a thing, so operating costs were minimal; owning the pools was a licence to print money.

But the pools have suffered since the National Lottery was launched - with the group losing 70% of its pools turnover in the past five years. Last year it accounted for only £300m of Littlewoods' £2.3bn turnover, and the group recently reported a 60% fall in pre-tax profits.

Until the lottery came along Littlewoods' pools business pulled in more than six million punters every week. For two and a half hours - from kickoff to classified re sults - every Saturday they were on tentherhooks. As Tony Hancock said in one of his sketches: "Two and a half hours time! I can't wait that long without knowing! I'd be a quivering mass of disintegrated nerve tissue, lying on the floor twitching away in a pile of fag-ends and finger nails!"

Selling the pools leaves Littlewoods free to concentrate on home shopping and high street stores, and the company is interested in acquiring up to 20 sites from C&A, which is pulling out of the UK after years of heavy losses.

Barry Gibson, chief executive, said the strategy of combining retail and catalogue stores had been working "extremely well" and the company was looking for sites in towns where it was not represented. Two years ago Littlewoods sold 19 stores to Marks & Spencer - which has since admitted that many of its problems stemmed from ill-timed expansion.

 

Last November, the company launched its new strategy, which will re-establish the Littlewoods name as the core brand. Market research findings highlighted many strengths associated with the name, customers trusting it to deliver quality at an affordable price. The Index catalogue shopping brand will move under the Littlewoods banner and trials of store fascias combining the two are already underway. The aim is to broaden its appeal to a newer, younger audience while building on relationships with existing customers.

Shares in the company - still privately held - are spread among 30 family members: socialites and socialists, family loyalists and self-styled realists. Their boardroom connections have faded in recent years. Only one member of the clan remains on the board: James Suenson Taylor, son of Sir John's daughter, Lady Grantchester.

But the business has had more than its share of dramas. The search for Sir John's successor had the hallmarks of the US television soap opera Dynasty - even down to a granddaughter named Alexis. One son, John junior, opted instead for cattle breeding; a nephew, Nigel, widely tipped as his successor, was killed in a car crash.

Another son, Peter, who had worked in the arts before joining the business, took over as chairman in 1977. He was ousted when profits dived - and Sir John returned to the helm at the age of 84. But the founder's brilliance had its drawbacks: so much of the company's managerial talent and power was concentrated in himself. For almost 60 years John Moores man aged Littlewoods in his own autocratic way. Staff were left in no doubt as to who controlled the company. Even senior executives had to clock on. Members of his family were treated the same way: he fired his nephew Timothy, aged 19, for eloping with a window dresser.

The Moores stretched their corporate brand and enhanced the family's philanthropic reputation by pouring millions into Merseyside charities, football and other sports, education and the arts. When Liverpool polytechnic made the leap to university status, few quibbled when it took the name of John Moores University - acknowledging his status as Merseyside's greatest post-war benefactor.

The fax

In the high street Littlewoods sales are £2.5bn a year from 5m sq ft of selling space. It is Britain's third-largest clothing retailer and fifth-largest non-food retailer

The stores More than 280, under three fascias: Littlewoods, Littlewoods Catalogue Discount Stores and Index, the catalogue store. Not many people know Index is part of Littlewoods, so the stores are being rebranded Littlewoods Index; 54 have been opened within larger Littlewoods stores

By mail order Be an agent for Janet Fraser, Burlington, Peter Craig and John Moores. Oh, and Littlewoods. If your back doesn't collapse under the weight of the catalogues. Index Extra cuts out the agent and is now Britain's largest direct home shopping catalogue

Treble chance The first pools coupons were handed out in 1923. Of 4,000 distributed, only 35 were returned, with bets totalling £4 7s 6d. The payout was £2 12s 0d and the season brought losses of £600. By 1954, the pools were the seventh-largest business in Britain, employing 23,000 people

 

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/jul/01/11

[lroy]

Thank u fsg for saving us from bankrupsy but do the honrably thing now and sell us back to the fans that deserve the club and not money grabbing owners that u are

[xerxes]

So yet again you move the posts in a vain effort to appear correct.

Documenting facts which support the points I made may enlighten you, but the rest of us already knew them.

 

The pools, shopping, and mail order businesses were disposed of for a handsome profit, leaving others to invest. Knowing when to get out is as important as knowing when to get in.

 

Understanding what you are quoting does help...

[ratcatcher]

Documenting facts which support the points I made may enlighten you, but the rest of us already knew them.

 

The pools, shopping, and mail order businesses were disposed of for a handsome profit, leaving others to invest. Knowing when to get out is as important as knowing when to get in.

 

Understanding what you are quoting does help...

 

All the facts prove your statements utterly wrong no matter what cheap diversionary tricks you may wish to resort to..

 

He didnt sell 'his' pools and retail business at the right time as you inaccurately  profess. As he wasnt the majority shareholder, he didnt have a say except as the collective.

 

Neither did he sell 'his interests' at the right time as you inaccurately state for the above reason.

 

The businesses were sold by the 30 odd members of the moores family. He was a shareholder of 1 against 29 others so 'he' couldnt have done the things you inaccurately state even if he wanted to.

 

'He' had to go with the decision of the majority of the remaining moores family. Im more than happy to correct you yet again (see what I did there? No probably not.)

 

I can well understand you trying to move the goalposts yet again when shown yet again to be wrong. You have form after all. But its still means you're totally and utterly wrong. Again.

[Cardie]

There's no way DIC wouldn't have won a title by now in my opinion. Nothing is done out here to be second best. We'd have been no different.

 

Of course they saw the club as an investment but that would have been a long term investment in my opinion.

 

I saw a Godolphin exhibition the other week and the attention to detail, financial backing, facilities provided etc is incredible.

 

Of course the financial crash would have affected their ownership of the club but we'd have been an established league and CL winning club so could have handled a few years without extravagant spending plus as has already been said, if they did chose to sell then it would in all likelihood have been to Abu Dhabi as that's where their financial backing came from at the time.

 

It would also have prevented Man City being bought by them.

 

All hindsight of course.

 

You may want to do more reading into DIC then.

[xerxes]

All the facts prove your statements utterly wrong no matter what cheap diversionary tricks you may wish to resort to..

You are joking, aren't you?

 

I claimed that "he was pretty adept at his business decisions with his other interests".

 

I am right. All sold for a handsome profit when all needed major investment ( as we did).

 

You quoted the detail!