It is interesting to see that Comet has been finally sold for £2. This is similar to other companies that have high debt profiles which are sold by their holding company or shareholders only wishing to stop their losses rather than continue to rack them up. What is also interesting is that the buyers were not happy to take on the liability of the pension fund and the sellers are having to inject money to sell it.
Will this be another Rover where the buyers make sure the cash is finished before liquidating the company? Hopefully not. Now bought by a turn around company one only has to think of Woolworths and MFI to wonder how many more may fall after the Christmas period and the January sales and next quarterly rental payment. There is a lot of talk of HMV being in the same position although they may well now be helped by the new VAT loop hole closure by HMRC in April preventing CDs and DVDs being shipped in VAT fee as under £ 15 from the Channel Islands.
