Thomas Cook Shares Dive 75% - Expect Others To Follow?

Thomas cooks shares have taken a massive hit today, losing 75% of their share value. So the question is now, who is going to follow? They are £900 million in debt! How on gods green earth did they get into debt that bad!! I know that weetabix are also £500 million in debt, how did that happen? Did weetabix give thier food away or something, they only make wheat biscuits!!

The company I work for is £500 million in debt, we print local newpapers in the uk, our nearest rival is 300 million in debt. How is it possible to even run up so much debt, its ridiculas and totally irresponisble!




www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by TheMindWar


I mentioned Thomas Cook on another thread and am worried it'll be the new Woolworths that sets the dominoes falling.. very worrisome... 100 aircraft.. 3000 shops.. and 33000 employees is a big hit to the country... coming hot on the heels of the BoE saying there is a high risk of a high impact event seems too coincidental.

It seems Thomas Cooks shares have taken a 95% hit since January.. very worrisome indeed...

ETA: But it certainly will take the blinkers off those who have their heads buried in the sands or indeed up their own behinds.

they've been expecting people to over pay for cheap holidays for years and to keep paying but now the cheap credit has gone people are putting their basic needs over a fortnight in somewhere hot and so they're getting caught

I posted this no longer than an hour ago in another thread that covers this topic, so i'll just copy/paste.


Anytime now, on the news they are reporting about Thomas Cook going under


Thomas Cook down 75% to 10.20p

Shares in Thomas Cook have closed down 75% after it announced it was in talks with banks about increasing the amount of money it can borrow. The travel firm said it had seen a "deterioration of trading", due to political unrest in Egypt and Tunisia and floods in Thailand. It also said it would delay releasing its full year results until it had concluded the discussions.

This will effect other travel agents, with Greece and Egypt, popular tourist destinations, in unrest. And as we see all over the world, unrest and instability is ripe. In Europe, it has yet to go into full swing, but it is only a matter of time before Italy goes under, and with that Spain and Portugal, other big tourist destination.

Mix that with the people who have very little money to treat themselves to a holiday, the obvious outcome is a major hit on the tourism industry, which in turn will hit the travel (airline) companies, and so on.

Im not the one for predictions, but I reckon that all will be well in 2011, because of the optimism of business's around Christmas time, but when the beginning of 2012 kicks in, and they realise they did not make as much money as they predicted (which they call a "loss", even though they didn't "loose" anything, just didn't make as much as they hoped) money will be coming out left right and centre of the market, and then the news will really hit home.

i was watching tv with my mum and i noticed that the traditional no holiday sales adverts till boxing day had been ignored for the first time in years so i could see the desperation so it doesnt surprise me

Originally posted by Trolloks
...they realise they did not make as much money as they predicted (which they call a "loss", even though they didn't "loose" anything, just didn't make as much as they hoped)...

I've seen some internal company spreadsheets. That's exactly how they write-up lower than expected profits. A weird world they invented.

If one of the largest travel companies goes bust imagine what that will do to overall bookings abroad ? Even if they're covered by A.B.T.A. (the holiday insurance authority) people will certainly think twice about risking a holiday abroad - when companies like this go bust, flight cancellations/delays follow soon after. Sooooo what could the upside be to this?

IMHO rather than risk being stranded or not getting to a destination at all might people holiday in their country of origin instead ? It would certainly cross my mind even if the U.K.'S weather isn't the greatest

(That old slogan they had....'Don't just Book it - Thomas Cook it !' Expect some wag to come up with a witty alternative in the near future .....)