Tomahawk - to avoid after lockdown

I expect some of the expansion they were already irreversibly committed to, but to expand a hospitality business in the last year otherwise is pretty reckless. Never the less, asking staff to help via a loan isn't out of order. Putting a gun to their head and saying 'or else' is.
 
deadmau5 said:
It’s not really a startup business - the guy that runs them has vast experience in retail and hospitality and should know better than this. And yes, FFS we are in a pandemic, now is not the time to be expanding in the worst hit sector and threatening your minimum wage staff with redundancy when your ambitious (but stupid) plan goes belly up.

Don’t forget that a 20% loss to someone on £8.72 an hour will be felt far more than a similar loss to a company director - particularly this fella who goes way beyond Range Rover territory - he daily drives a Mercedes G63 AMG and has a Ferrari 488 for a bit of weekend fun. Trading those in for a nice Ford Focus could easily free up a few quid. But no, sure, the minimum wage staff should give up their wages that are keeping their heads above water to support his business and lifestyle 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
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There's not been a pandemic on this scale for a lifetime, they have probably made some bad decisions, and this is partly the result of that, but this is what most would say is unprecedented.

Which guy? To me it looks limited to a few in the north east and the rest loosly linked at best, maybe franchises?
The whole chain is worth less than 1m, which is a tiny sum, for a list of about 10 restaurants. The potto building should be worth more than that on it's own, they must be leased up to the max.

I don't know his personal finances, or even who he is, but his cars are probably in his own name, so paid for by his own wages, probably accrued over a long time, and no doubt he has other commitments. I doubt the company would be paying for them as nobody in their right mind would do that, as the BIK would have sunk him by now. Chances of these being paid off in full, are slim, probably on low-interest, long term loans, just covering the depreciation. If he cancelled on the leases or loans he would need to pay in full, and then probably have to sell the cars off at a massive discount, it's likely better for him to hold them until the market picks up.

I can understand why people think the director should financially break himself to cover staff wages, but people don't just easily give up what they've took 10,20,30,50 years to build up. At that stage I doubt many directors would be re-injecting personal wealth, they would just let the limited company take the hit and die, and then retire.

Would people just prefer if the company folded, and took all the staff down with it? As loads are doing this by the way.
 
Indeed - but it's the assumption that his employees have been living it up on 80% salary (and that's for those on living wage, let alone minimum) for the duration of the pandemic when in reality, they are most likely to be just getting by on £7 an hour on part-time hours. I managed to get away with just 6 weeks of furlough, but had to make changes to my lifestyle and cost-cut in a few areas to keep my mortgage and bills paid. Tomahawk seem to have just approached the whole pandemic situation in a totally inappropriate way.

I work in finance and we discuss financial risk a lot - there's a fine line between huge success and catastrophic failure. If the first lockdown was sufficient in keeping numbers low and / or the vaccine program started a few months sooner, then it would be hailed as a business masterstroke with lots of shiny new venues ready to make the most of a hungry public returning to spend their money. In reality, it hasn't panned out that way, and you have to take those losses on the chin and try to make ends meet in a way other than trying to fleece your staff members of their paltry wage, and threatening to sack them if they don't. I'm sure they don't have a few luxury motors and a commercial and residential property portfolio to fall back on!

A the end of the day, they took a calculated business risk, it failed, and they have been caught out trying to patch their mistake in an immoral manner.
 
Been to the restaurant in Yarm for Sunday dinner and it was very good, twice I have had food from the takeaway in Yarm it was dreadful both times. i wont be going back to either now, its hard to see how the chain can recover from such dreadful publicity.
 
Andy_W said:
There's not been a pandemic on this scale for a lifetime, they have probably made some bad decisions, and this is partly the result of that, but this is what most would say is unprecedented.

Which guy? To me it looks limited to a few in the north east and the rest loosly linked at best, maybe franchises?
The whole chain is worth less than 1m, which is a tiny sum, for a list of about 10 restaurants. The potto building should be worth more than that on it's own, they must be leased up to the max.

I don't know his personal finances, or even who he is, but his cars are probably in his own name, so paid for by his own wages, probably accrued over a long time, and no doubt he has other commitments. I doubt the company would be paying for them as nobody in their right mind would do that, as the BIK would have sunk him by now. Chances of these being paid off in full, are slim, probably on low-interest, long term loans, just covering the depreciation. If he cancelled on the leases or loans he would need to pay in full, and then probably have to sell the cars off at a massive discount, it's likely better for him to hold them until the market picks up.

I can understand why people think the director should financially break himself to cover staff wages, but people don't just easily give up what they've took 10,20,30,50 years to build up. At that stage I doubt many directors would be re-injecting personal wealth, they would just let the limited company take the hit and die, and then retire.

Would people just prefer if the company folded, and took all the staff down with it? As loads are doing this by the way.
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Well following on from that point, why should the company potentially financially break their far less well-off employees to cover business overheads accrued irresponsibly over the pandemic? I can understand the logic to some extent, and like others have said, they could have offered an incentive like making the loans into formal arrangements with interest paid to the employees as a thank you for helping out. But the way they have gone about it is appalling.

And I'm also not saying the company would be better folded, but the whole point of the furlough scheme, and the business loans made available by the government, were put in place to stop businesses folding by reducing their financial burden - they were not meant to enable continuing buying up and refurbishing new venues. They surely could also have put a few projects on hold; I find it very hard to believe that some of the recent spending was committed to over a year and half ago.
 
deadmau5 said:
Indeed - but it's the assumption that his employees have been living it up on 80% salary (and that's for those on living wage, let alone minimum) for the duration of the pandemic when in reality, they are most likely to be just getting by on £7 an hour on part-time hours. I managed to get away with just 6 weeks of furlough, but had to make changes to my lifestyle and cost-cut in a few areas to keep my mortgage and bills paid. Tomahawk seem to have just approached the whole pandemic situation in a totally inappropriate way.

I work in finance and we discuss financial risk a lot - there's a fine line between huge success and catastrophic failure. If the first lockdown was sufficient in keeping numbers low and / or the vaccine program started a few months sooner, then it would be hailed as a business masterstroke with lots of shiny new venues ready to make the most of a hungry public returning to spend their money. In reality, it hasn't panned out that way, and you have to take those losses on the chin and try to make ends meet in a way other than trying to fleece your staff members of their paltry wage, and threatening to sack them if they don't. I'm sure they don't have a few luxury motors and a commercial and residential property portfolio to fall back on!

A the end of the day, they took a calculated business risk, it failed, and they have been caught out trying to patch their mistake in an immoral manner.
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Oh I know, I'm not saying living it up, although I know loads who have been, it's probably not the case here as hospitality does not pay well. They aren't all on minimum wage though, and even £1,200 a month for nothing is better than being on the dole, which loads have been. Like I said before, they could always quit and look elsewhere, but it's a worse outcome.

I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's $hit, very $hit, but it's $hit for everyone, and for some people who have no company or job left it's 100 times worse.

They were definitely going for the rapid growth strategy, so this has hit them at the wrong time. God knows what they were doing with the expansions, but I would bet my hat this was private investment/ franchise type deals, and not with massive loans against the main company or equity outlay. I don't think anyone could be that stupid to be going to the wall and trying to spend cash on expanding, it would be bonkers.

They've definitely messed up somewhere along the line, and in either case, this does not look like it's going to end well, for the company and then ultimately for the directors.
The thing is, if people boycott it, the staff then lose out even more.
 
Andy_W said:
Oh I know, I'm not saying living it up, although I know loads who have been, it's probably not the case here as hospitality does not pay well. They aren't all on minimum wage though, and even £1,200 a month for nothing is better than being on the dole, which loads have been. Like I said before, they could always quit and look elsewhere, but it's a worse outcome.

I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's $hit, very $hit, but it's $hit for everyone, and for some people who have no company or job left it's 100 times worse.

They were definitely going for the rapid growth strategy, so this has hit them at the wrong time. God knows what they were doing with the expansions, but I would bet my hat this was private investment/ franchise type deals, and not with massive loans against the main company or equity outlay. I don't think anyone could be that stupid to be going to the wall and trying to spend cash on expanding, it would be bonkers.

They've definitely messed up somewhere along the line, and in either case, this does not look like it's going to end well, for the company and then ultimately for the directors.
The thing is, if people boycott it, the staff then lose out even more.
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I'm interested to know more about these people "living it up" on furlough pay.
 
Andy_W said:
Oh I know, I'm not saying living it up, although I know loads who have been, it's probably not the case here as hospitality does not pay well. They aren't all on minimum wage though, and even £1,200 a month for nothing is better than being on the dole, which loads have been. Like I said before, they could always quit and look elsewhere, but it's a worse outcome.

I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's $hit, very $hit, but it's $hit for everyone, and for some people who have no company or job left it's 100 times worse.

They were definitely going for the rapid growth strategy, so this has hit them at the wrong time. God knows what they were doing with the expansions, but I would bet my hat this was private investment/ franchise type deals, and not with massive loans against the main company or equity outlay. I don't think anyone could be that stupid to be going to the wall and trying to spend cash on expanding, it would be bonkers.

They've definitely messed up somewhere along the line, and in either case, this does not look like it's going to end well, for the company and then ultimately for the directors.
The thing is, if people boycott it, the staff then lose out even more.
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Agree with most points, but again, the 80% salary equating to £1,200 a month will be way out for the majority of people who work there - don't forget that a significant majority will just be young part timers working on a weekend, and maybe picking up one or two evenings during the week. And also consider that minimum wage for under 18s is £4.55 per hour and for 18-20 year olds £6.45 per hour - lop 20% off those for the couple of hours they are likely to work and they really will not be getting very much at all, and hopefully highlights how unfair it is of the business to ask them to give up even more. Perhaps some of the supervisors, senior chefs and middle managers etc will have been bringing in furlough money on the order of £1,200 a month, but they will be in the minority - most will be young front of house staff, bar staff, kitchen assistants and sous-chefs.
 
Randy said:
I'm interested to know more about these people "living it up" on furlough pay.
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I know a few lads that work for Rolls Royce who have been getting nearly £2,500 a month, who have no mortgage and have only done a few days work in this past year. Most of them were getting lashed up in the garden most days over summer, and a couple have done up their houses and sold them on, or done them up for their landlords for extra cash. They've been loving it, and they happily admit it. Fair play to them mind as they've had redundancy looming over them all year. A load of them haven't been made redundant purely because furlough saved their jobs.

They're all sick of it now mind, the novelty of doing nothing has wore off.
 
No doubt a sense of entitlement going on. The guy who's business it is looks like he likes to puff his chest out and has a 'see me' attitude. These people normally do. Fact is that the steak houses in question have only been around five minutes and anyone could see that their rate of expansion didn't seem right. If people are conducting business in a way that doesn't add up, it nearly always doesn't.

Considering the local Teesside media have been giving Tomahawks plenty of publicity. How long will they take to report this news? 😆
 
Andy_W said:
I know a few lads that work for Rolls Royce who have been getting nearly £2,500 a month, who have no mortgage and have only done a few days work in this past year. Most of them were getting lashed up in the garden most days over summer, and a couple have done up their houses and sold them on, or done them up for their landlords for extra cash. They've been loving it, and they happily admit it. Fair play to them mind as they've had redundancy looming over them all year. A load of them haven't been made redundant purely because furlough saved their jobs.

They're all sick of it now mind, the novelty of doing nothing has wore off.
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I'm sure those lads could afford to live it up; watching £2.5k roll in every month without lifting a finger sounds like a great deal in anyone's book. But being able to claim just short of the maximum available furlough money through employment at Rolls Royce, a large and very well established multinational paying very good wages to highly skilled employees, is a totally different kettle of fish to getting an 80% share of the peanuts paid as a lower-rung worker in the hospitality sector.
 
deadmau5 said:
Agree with most points, but again, the 80% salary equating to £1,200 a month will be way out for the majority of people who work there - don't forget that a significant majority will just be young part timers working on a weekend, and maybe picking up one or two evenings during the week. And also consider that minimum wage for under 18s is £4.55 per hour and for 18-20 year olds £6.45 per hour - lop 20% off those for the couple of hours they are likely to work and they really will not be getting very much at all, and hopefully highlights how unfair it is of the business to ask them to give up even more. Perhaps some of the supervisors, senior chefs and middle managers etc will have been bringing in furlough money on the order of £1,200 a month, but they will be in the minority - most will be young front of house staff, bar staff, kitchen assistants and sous-chefs.
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Ah it was just an example, based on the full-timers who are likely older and have a bit more responsibility. Don't get me wrong there are some people that this will be absolutely killing, I'm well aware of that, it's tragic, and their pay is terrible. But again it boils down to they don't have to take the 80%, they can try their hand at something else, for most they will take 80% every day at the week. In fact I don't know anyone that hasn't took the 80%, I can't imagine many have.

The part-timers are probably living with parents, sharing, renting or could have changed circumstances to make things cheaper. Let's not forget that people haven't exactly been spending much on clothes, going out, cosmetics, holidays etc. For a lot, 80% when doing nothing is better off than 100% when out every weekend putting yourself into the red. When I was 16-21, 75% of my money went on going out! I would have saved a fortune in this pandemic if I was 18. Obviously I know this is not the case for everyone.
 
So I don't have to take the 80% I can go work elsewhere instead? Except one small problem with that, everywhere that my qualifications and skillset is aimed at is shut and has put staff on furlough too. 😂
 
deadmau5 said:
I'm sure those lads could afford to live it up; watching £2.5k roll in every month without lifting a finger sounds like a great deal in anyone's book. But being able to claim just short of the maximum available furlough money through employment at Rolls Royce, a large and very well established multinational paying very good wages to highly skilled employees, is a totally different kettle of fish to getting an 80% share of the peanuts paid as a lower-rung worker in the hospitality sector.
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I was asked for an example, here's a couple more:

I had 3-5 employees on Furlough at some stages, they all got between £1800-£3000, and all got 100% pay, that was only about 1-2 month each mind. They were happy about this to say the least, cost me about 80k mind.

My missus works in a shop, gets about 18-20k per year, she's been on Furlough for most of it, spent most of it in the garden, she said she's never saved so much money. She doesn't have a mortgage to pay, doesn't pay much for a car etc. I asked her if she would take 70% pay to improve her job prospects and her words were "at least I would have a job".

I know one lass who had an extremely small business to do with horses and she got a 15k grant, I think, and her business wasn't even effected! It worked out about 6 months extra turnover, she said "I've never seen so much money". I know one guy who got 10k, but it wouldn't even cover his monthly fuel bill. There are some winners and some losers.

Yes, there are loads of downsides, but it could be 100 times worse.
 
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Randy said:
So I don't have to take the 80% If can go work elsewhere instead? Except one small problem with that, everywhere that my qualifications and skillset is aimed at is shut and has put staff on furlough too. 😂
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That was exactly my point.

80% might not be as good as 100%, but it's better than 0%.

There are thousands (probably millions) on 0% who would love your 80%.

The point is it can get worse, it's already worse for hundreds of thousands, and it will get a lot worse for a lot more people, most are massively underestimating how much of a problem this debt is going to create, even for the companies that survive it.

This 10% loan may have saved this company and 100 jobs, maybe it won't, but I bet they wouldn't be asking if they were not desperate.
 
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