Slater & Gordon ‘Bleeding Cash’ – Part 864.
Dee Cole, poster girl for Slater & Gordon, got her caravan on the south coast to gave her ‘closure’ and help her forget the time she was, er, raped by Savile in a caravan on the south coast….if only Slater & Gordon had done as well out of that tale as Dee did.
Yet again Slater & Gordon have posted massive losses. On Tuesday, the law firm announced a cool $1 billion full-year loss in what Andrew Grech described as ‘a tough, challenging and disappointing’ period for the once high flying law firm.
That’s around $85 million dollars a month? How do you manage to let $85 million slip through your fingers each and every month – when you are already in ‘special needs’. The investors must be thrilled. It’s their cash.
It was the reasons for the massive loss which perked me up. No longer just blamed on the Quindell disaster, they now admit that they are ‘bleeding cash due to issues experienced in Britain‘.
A billion dollar loss is no way to repay the $460 million debt that they were given an extension to May 2018 to repay.
“[The extension] gives us the headway we feel we need to do the work that needs to be done and of course that includes restoring cash flows to the business which is really what will determine the outcome over that year or so,” Mr Grech said.
As part of a turnaround plan, Slater & Gordon have reduced its staff numbers in Britain by 14 per cent and closed four offices.
Slater & Gordon also cited underperformance of its British operations.
Mr Grech described ‘progress as unfortunately slow’.
‘We haven’t achieved the resolution rates in those cases that we wanted to and there are a variety of reasons,’ he said, citing co-operation of insurers, staff changes and other factors.
‘Of course the longer the cases take to resolve the more expensive it makes it for us and it is something we are addressing, in trying to accelerate the process,’ said Mr Grech.
Or put it another way – those whining Pommies at the Savile Trust fought us tooth and nail, going on about ‘proof’ and nonsense like that and we ended up with a derisory fee after five solid years of trying to clean out the BBC, the NHS and the Charities that should have received Savile’s estate…
- Jonathan King
August 31, 2016 at 9:17 am -
But it is all relative isn’t it? I wonder how many millions S&G made from representing false accusers whose claims were either never brought to court (“insufficient evidence”) or came to court and failed (acquittal) or were made about dead people. I think we should be told. OK the golden nest egg turned out to be quail sized and not duck sized but even that much precious metal was probably a great deal more than the poor “victims” got. The False Allegations Industry does exist. Helpful, caring lawyers and police colluding with all types to pervert the course of justice.
- tdf
August 31, 2016 at 11:19 pm -
@ Jonathan
A factor here might also be the quantum of cases taken on on a ‘no foal no fee’ basis. If they took on a lot of cases on that basis, then I think they have no recourse to the clients who took cases that were never brought to court, or which did go to court but failed (acquittal).
- tdf
- Bunny
August 31, 2016 at 9:30 am -
Anna, from your report Slater and Gordon state that they are losing approximately £50,000,000.00 a month. This is for a company that trades on intellectual property and not physical work. It does not own items, it rents, this type of company is designed to have a small cost base.
This sounds like money is being syphoned out of the business rather than actual losses. I would not be surprised if further allegations or scandals emerges from Slater and Gordon. Those allegations being where’s me money.
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 31, 2016 at 9:44 am -
*waits the day an Allegator decides she was ‘abused’ in the very chambers (read ‘3rd floor dungeon’) of S&G….what comes around and all that…*
- tdf
August 31, 2016 at 11:22 pm -
@Bunny
You could be on the ball. It takes effort to lose £50m a month.
Who are Slater and Gordon’s auditors?
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Anon
August 31, 2016 at 11:22 am -
Around 10 days ago Sir Jimmy’s beneficiaries were told by NatWest’s Lawyers that the coffers we empty and the Estate now stands at Zero.
I watched with interest Lord Janner’s family say on TV a couple of days ago “we will use our inheritance to fight these claims and prove his innocence” How did that happen then? How did they get Lord Janner’s Will paid out? Who were his Executors?
NatWest may still have some questions to answer – they employed Osborne Clark to deal with Estate, but Sir Jimmy’s Estate paid their bill. NatWest took an extraordinarily long time (seven months) to declare the DNA test on his “love child” was negative and should therefore have distributed the Estate long before the Claims.
Oh to have a level playing field.
- Margaret Jervis
August 31, 2016 at 11:51 am -
No wonder Liz wants a kangaroo IICSA finding re Janner rather than the massive costs punt in the civil courts.Could be the final straw for S&G UK.
Real point being that this is their ‘shop window’ – if there’s negative outcome or widespread revulsion and ridicule re ‘trying a corpse’ then the brand will become as tainted as Shiner’s PIL. There must be much quivering in the shadows of PI-land UK. - Moor Larkin
August 31, 2016 at 11:56 am -
Presumably S&G make these losses because the lawyers working for them get paid so much.
- Keith Walters
August 31, 2016 at 12:20 pm -
This is something that has intrigued me too: Most of us have been in lawyers’ offices at one time or another; they look pretty much like any other office, with desks, computers, printers, photocopy machines etc.
WHAT THE HELL DID THEY SPEND THE BILLION DOLLARS ON?!
For the average layman, it’s hard to imagine what a million dollars looks like; multiply that by a thousand….- Wigner’s Friend
August 31, 2016 at 2:45 pm -
What brought it home to me was thinking of seconds instead of £s. A million seconds is just over 3 days, a billion seconds is just over 35 years! Do the math.
- Keith Walters
September 1, 2016 at 12:18 am -
Well, a million seconds is actually a bit over 11 days, but I know what you mean.
I used to work for a company that had run up nearly $US 1 billion debt. At the time I left they were losing about $20 million a year. But even if they turned that round to the point where they could afford to pay back $1 million a year, it would still take 1,000 years to pay back that debt, ignoring any interest.
By the way, S&G’s debt was quoted in Australian dollars, which is about £570,000
So that’s all right then
It sort of reminds me of failed Australian billionaire Alan Bond. He was jailed for three years basically for stealing $AU 1 billion through share market fraud. That’s basically 1 million a day.
Who wouldn’t want to spend 1 day in a minimum security prison farm for a million dollars?
Might as well stay the full week and make it worthwhile!- Sean Coleman
September 1, 2016 at 8:53 pm -
Google tells me that a million seconds are about 11.5 days and a billion seconds are nearly 32,000 years. while one thousand million are nearly 32 years. I think this confusing of the two senses of ‘billion’ is more than just a symptom of, but probably a contributing factor towards our intellectual paralysis. When Ireland sold what remained of its soul to Europe in the Maastricht Referendum I remember the price was ‘£6 billion’ in Euro ‘aid’. I don’t think many did the rough calculation that it could mean either a couple of grand or a couple of million per person, probably because they didn’t know what a billion was. (Of course, it was the lower figure.) Similarly whereas any older local can tell you that the distance from Killarney to Tralee is 20 miles, young people can’t, nor can they describe distances or dimensions, nor do they even try.
- tdf
September 2, 2016 at 5:05 am -
@Sean
Official UK statistics have used the short scale (i.e., a billion is a thousand million, not a million million) since 1974. The UK financial press has also done since as long as I’ve been reading it (late eighties/early nineties).
As for miles vs kilometres, my mind still works in miles, in spite of all road signs in Eire having being changed to metric over a decade now ago.
- tdf
September 2, 2016 at 11:52 am -
@Sean PS: Incidentally, as you seem to have decided that I am some kind of Euro-fanatic, you might be surprised to learn that I voted against Maastricht. I was persuaded by the arguments of various economists that a single currency was not going to work and that ceding control of monetary policy in effect meant ceding control of fiscal policy. 25 years later, as we survey the wreckage of the smaller eurozone economies, it is difficult to argue that they, and I, were wrong.
- tdf
- tdf
- Sean Coleman
- Keith Walters
- Wigner’s Friend
- Fat Steve
August 31, 2016 at 3:58 pm -
@Margaret Jervis rather than the massive costs punt in the civil courts.
Elegantly put …..there was always going to come the day when ‘commercial’ settlements irrespective of merit were going to be questioned as the continuing way forward.
But the Partners of S&G are in a position a bit like bankers no doubt ….not so much shareholders and owners of the business but professional managers of it …..you know the old line that is wheeled out when times are tough we have to work harder so deserve higher pay…..bonuses if losses aren’t as big as predicted etc etc ……and of course should S&G fail then a bit like British Home Stores the customers will move on …..didn’t somebody remark recently in this blog that the shop he knew had been rebranded three times in thirty years as the parent company went into liquidation but the staff remained the same?
There will be big bucks to be made if S&G fail ……anyone who has the skill to know the good cases from the bad and pick up the good cases and leave the dross behind …..now I wonder who are best placed to know that? - Don Cox
August 31, 2016 at 5:21 pm -
“anyone who has the skill to know the good cases from the bad and pick up the good cases and leave the dross behind …..now I wonder who are best placed to know that?”
Oh I know that. There are no good cases. They are all bad.
Can I have a few million pounds, please ?
- Fat Steve
August 31, 2016 at 9:37 pm -
@ Don Cox
Acynical lawyer might say there are no good clients just profitable cases .- The Blocked Dwarf
September 1, 2016 at 12:49 am -
and in the same tone of voice as a pimp might say ‘there are no £1000 a night tarts, just £1000 a night johns’.
- Fat Steve
September 1, 2016 at 10:53 am -
Such Pimps and such Lawyers are invariably the wealthy ones ……but some only see money where others see Aphrodite and Iustitia.
- Fat Steve
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Fat Steve
- Alexander Baron
August 31, 2016 at 6:08 pm -
I can’t believe they’d entertain this. How about charging a few of these lowlife with wasting police time?
http://www.theweek.co.uk/cliff-richard/59962/sir-cliff-richard-fresh-anguish-as-abuse-claims-are-reviewed - tdf
August 31, 2016 at 11:13 pm -
Must say I haven’t been following this closely.
Did they leverage up on the basis of an expected payout from CSA cases delivering a bonanza? Are there other factors here?
- Peter Raite
September 1, 2016 at 7:19 pm -
“[The extension] gives us the headway we feel we need to do the work that needs to be done and of course that includes restoring cash flows to the business which is really what will determine the outcome over that year or so,” Mr Grech said.
Why am I strangely reminded of our old friends at Kids Company and their last minute government bail-out? Supposed to be spent on the work in had, but side-tracked to pay the staff salaries.
Just a thought.
- Keith Walters
September 2, 2016 at 6:11 am -
“[Dee] … got her caravan on the south coast to gave her ‘closure’”
So, the Guardians of Good at the CPS (ably assisted Slattern & Gormless of course) have finally finally restored at least SOME of dear Dee’s dignity, joie de vivre, espirit de corps, savior faire, and so on, and gave the inner strength to achieve her dream of finally ascending to the ranks, of, er … Trailer Trash…
(Roll crickets….)
Ooh it do warm th’ cockles of one’s ‘eart, and as everybody knows, there’s nowt that’s much worse than cold cockles…- Bandini
September 2, 2016 at 3:58 pm -
Trailer trash? A little unfair, Keith, as anyone looking beyond the tattoos would find a woman of culture & sophistication:
Olly Lambert, director of ‘Abused: The Untold Story’ (fraudulently passed off as a documentary):
“Take Dee Coles, the first person I interviewed. Her assault was probably less than ten minutes and it happened 40 years ago. But it has shaped every facet of her life. It changed who she could have relationships with, and how she had relationships. Because of what Savile did to her she vomited, which means she has a phobia of being sick, which means she can’t ever get on a plane.”
Dee Coles, fantasist, who amongst the many lies (eg. forced to drop out of school by Savile’s ‘crime’ a year before the ‘crime’ took place) claimed to have been driven to drink & drugs by Savile:
“First time on a plane in 12 years
Solo with just a cheeky brandy and ginger ale !”Where was she going? To Edinburgh, to the opera:
“Olly Lambert presented me with this programme signed with messages from the cast!”
Raise your glasses to Dee ‘n’ Olly! What a hoot(enanny)…
- Bandini
- Fat Steve
September 2, 2016 at 10:44 am -
S&G might spend some of their money before it all disappears on investment in fine art.
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/clare-auction/catalogue-id-srcla10014/lot-e5b45d71-8075-4592-8a5b-a674008ef1f3 - Keith Walters
September 3, 2016 at 5:25 am -
On the subject of Rolf, apart from Miss Leigh Park’s £22,000 compensation payout for Rolf apparently doing something disgusting, albeit almost physically impossible, with his “big hairy hands” (which he doesn’t have), in the Leigh Park Community Centre (where the prosecution failed absolutely to demonstrate he’d ever been), at the time of the first Moon landing, (when he was actually in Australia), singing “Two Little Boys”, (which had yet to released), in a “Childrens’ Disco (that neither the local council who run the community centre nor the locals have any record or recollection of ever taking place at any time), in full view of a room full of people, (none of whom noticed this appalling act, OR have any autographs from Rolf despite the “long queue”), did any of his other three “survivors” actually manage to claim any compensation. There doesn’t seem to be any record of that, or were they satisfied with “closure”?
- Lizzie Cornish
September 3, 2016 at 1:43 pm -
Rib-ticklingly wonderful, Keith! And oh, so, SO true.
Of course, the brother of Violet Elizabeth Leigh-Park threw a wobbly saying his dear sister hadn’t got ENOUGH of Rolf’s money and that she should have far more, as her life was in ruins….
Oddly, not enough ‘in ruins’ for her to have been a foster carer though, which, seeing as they won’t even let folks who’ve been divorced become foster carers for many, many years, until they have completely recovered from a divorce, seems just a tad bizarre, seeing that this attack, in a place he never visitied, had such a ‘catastrophic effect’ upon her, even making it impossible for her to have relationships with men, but seemingly not impossible enough for her to have been married by 16 with a child….going on to be declared bankrupt in 2012
Wonder if Mistress DuckingStool will be on the list of staff to be ducked, in the not too distant future….
Ah, poor S&G, my heart doth bleed for them…. ;0)
- Lizzie Cornish
- Lizzie Cornish
September 3, 2016 at 1:34 pm -
There *is* a God :0)
- JM
September 5, 2016 at 5:48 am -
Yes correct 1 billion in the UK is 10 to the power of 9. But (boring stuff now) in the USA they stated for years that 1 billion was = 1 hundred million. Hence always more billionaires in the USA until they conformed to our way of thinking.
Cutting a long story short of S&G’s horrific car crash of a company & greed, fraud plus anon phone calls asking people if they have broken a leg ( prompting them to say yes you have broken your leg & here’s £25k for saying yes ) the proof being on their own Twitter time line where they have been asked “why did one of your reps from S&G say I’d break my own leg & get £25k”
Answered by “oh it might have been a trainee & please contact us to discuss further” is beyond me. I hope S&G & Liz Dux et al fall flat on their backsides and that business is shut down ASAP. The SFO are investigating two years of their tax matters along with Australian class actions et al being thrown at them left right and centre. Even Jim Davidsons solicitor was asked if he knew any ‘victims’ interested in earning £50k. The Compensation culture stemmed from the USA & no win no fee has cost many innocent & wrongly accused their freedom or their whole lives ruined by ever lasting stigma.JK is an example of fairy tales & thank god the daily mail had the balls to print the truth of his innocence as 15 years and counting of his life has been ruined by lying tabloids, sourced victims & given an extra kick in the nuts by a PR guru who now shares the same problem.
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