Tag Archives: #unpaidinvoices

Hypermarkets in France a new deal. A lot of Hypermarkets make losses.

Hypermarkets the new deal

Hypermarkets in France

Hypermarkets in France a new deal.

In France, consumption declined in most Hypermarkets in 2019. The glass is half empty or half full. Optimists will find that two thirds of the Carrefour Hypermarkets in France make money. Pessimists will point out that a third of the park pulls down the result of the branch. The issue is also sensitive to Auchan, the other chain of very large Hypermarkets. In its December issue, the trade magazine “Linear” examined the “evil of self-service hypermarkets” and advanced “the real numbers”. The trade magazine recalls that the self-service hypermarkets Carrefour, Auchan and Casino recorded sales of 2.7 billion euros between 2014 and 2018, of which one billion for the first two. Consumer habits are changing. Consumers commute less and tend to local supermarkets. The shift from non-food shopping to e-commerce and specialized supermarkets also explains the dissatisfaction of certain Hypermarkets. “Linear” keeps its figures from union sources. According to this information, the decline in sales is associated with a decrease in profitability. Carrefour France’s hyper integrated and franchised companies reportedly had a current operating deficit of 132 million euros in 2018. For comparison: Auchan Retail France generated a profit of 479 million in 2014. Operating profit (80% of activities are carried out by Hypermarkets) decreased to -155 million. The magazine also confirms that “89 businesses would make losses” at Carrefour Hypermarkets SAS ‘191 locations in 2018. The Carrefour Group does not comment on these figures, which it does not publish. In an interview with “Linear,” Marie Cheval, general manager of consumer markets, only states that 41 Hypermarkets will launch Rebond, “an operating model that inspectors entrust to directors to compensate for deteriorating profitability.” Dejan Terglav, General Secretary of FGTA-FO from Carrefour, responds to “Les Echos” and assesses all these figures as “likely”. He fears that the group will default to leasing around twenty hypermarkets. Carrefour has started to revive its consumer markets. 2018 is the first of the Group’s transformation plan that has invested particularly in competitiveness and prices. This strained numbers and margins. Kepler Cheuvreux underlined this “conscious strategy”. Since then, sales space reductions have been initiated, such as the rental of space to Darty. The Hypermarket soldier needs to be saved.

B to C debt collection costs in France a nightmarish situation when debtor is an individual.

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B to C debt collection costs in France a nightmarish situation. The B to C debt collection costs in France were the subject of a new judicial decision dated September 26, 2019. This decision concerns the collection costs charged to individuals by the collection agencies. The decision of the Administrative Court is as follows. The collection of damages from the debtor must, except to qualify as deceptive marketing practices, be preceded by a justification of the nature and amount of the damage alleged. According to the judges the only fact for the administration to note that neither the proof of bad faith, nor that of the reality and the quantum of the damage, were reported, was sufficient to reclassify the damages and interests in debt collection costs constituting deceptive marketing practices. The burden of proof of the bad faith of the debtor and the loss suffered is on the creditor. Failing this, the collection firm is exposed to heavy criminal penalties for deceptive marketing practices. The context of this decision is related to the practices of some French recovery firms that try to make debtors pay damages by referring to Article 1231-6 of the Civil Code. The root of the problem is related to the small amount of the claims in the B to C files. To make their actions profitable some collection firms do not hesitate to claim substantial damages from the debtors to cover the debt collection costs incurred. The Court’s decision confirms that in practice and for debtors with a private person status, it is in fact impossible to claim recovery costs except to risk very heavy penalties. How to produce receipts for debts of a few tens of euros. And it is equally true that not paying small bills for an individual is a real lawless area, the debtor not in fact risk anything to pay his bills when he sings, if he decides to pay. No one is going to expose the debt collection costs of proceedings for a claim of a few tens of euros.

Hedge Fund the rise of one whom nothing predestined to become the best manager of history.

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Hedge Fund the rise of one whom nothing predestined to become the best manager of history “The man who solved the riddle of the markets” Wall Street Journal’s Greg Zuckerman’s book is the book that everyone is talking about on Wall Street. He portrays the rise of one whom nothing predestined to become the best manager of history. The mathematician Jim Simons, whose fortune exceeds 23 billion dollars, is at the origin of a UFO: the Medallion fund. Since 1988, this quantitative hedge fund has recorded an average annual gain of 66.1%, reduced to 39% after deducting its commissions. Over 20 years (1985-2004), George Soros’ hedge fund (Quantum fund) had an average annual return of 20.2%. Prize of excellence Aware of its value, the Medallion Hedge Fund has taken the highest rates in the industry, 5% of assets and 44% of profits generated through its performance. Hedge Fund typically take between 1.5% and 2% of assets and 20% of profits. Given its success, this Hedge Fund no longer accepted money from investors since 1993. In 2005, it was reserved exclusively for employees of the Hedge Fund. For Simons, this fund was to remain relatively small, less than $ 10 billion, to continue to perform well. The founder is aware of the law of diminishing returns in the financial world: the more the capital is important, the more a manager is struggling to remain as efficient.

Inconceivable In an interview with “Institutional Investor” in November 2000, the founder of Renaissance said: “Today we manage $ 4 billion, perhaps $ 7 to $ 8 billion in the future. But 70 billion, never! It is inconceivable. I am 62 years old and in the next three years I would like to pass the torch. Today the Hedge Fund manages $ 110 billion, and Jim Simons retired in 2010 while remaining involved in his company, being non-executive chairman. The Medallion has been a fantastic Hedge Fund appeal and advertising product, which has launched other funds such as Renaissance equities. He managed the increase in his assets and the change in size of his fund. “Make money when I sleep” In 1978, Jim Simons left his position as professor of mathematics at Stony Brook University to found his first Limroy Hedge Fund. Like other traders of the time, he tries to anticipate the decisions of the Federal Reserve but without much success. Yet at the time, he consulted the opinion of an economist, Alan Greenspan, who would become the president of the Fed between 1986 and 2007. His poor results prompt him to seek a trading system without human interference. “I do not want to worry about markets every minute. I want models that make me earn money when I sleep. He then embarked on quantitative management in the futures markets, particularly commodities. It speculates on potatoes, oil or pig carcasses but again the yields are random. The Hedge Fund, Renaissance Technologies, which was born in 1982, decided to move up a gear and began to build systematic and rigorous quantitative management. “There are movements and configurations in the markets that are not ‘visible to the naked eye’ by traders, but Renaissance wanted to exploit these anomalies in a systematic and rigorous way,” says Greg Zuckerman. Grey matter The fund is progressively recruiting the best mathematicians, astrophysicists, linguists, artificial intelligence specialists and computer scientists. It ensures their loyalty by allowing them to invest their bonuses in the Medallion Hedge Fund, where the average investment of employees is now around $ 50 million. Those who leave the company are subject to very strict confidentiality agreements and a non-competition clause over a very long period. It is not possible that they go into another Hedge Fund to disclose the secrets of the company.

The “home culture” of Renaissance, the antithesis of that of Hedge Fund of the time, was in three words: humility, patience, work. No star manager took positions according to his “instinct”, a word banned internally. His traders had to follow the signals of mathematical models and never take personal initiative. In fact, very few Wall Street professionals have been recruited by Renaissance who prefers to hire IBM alumni. The Medallion fund also invested some of its money in about 40 Hedge Fund. It was a way to seize opportunities that he had not identified himself while benefiting from information feedback on the markets. Data gathering. To help it achieve good market forecasts, this Hedge Fund was one of the first to recognize the importance of having as much financial data as possible. He has collected very old and good course histories. Databases often contain errors that a statistics specialist was responsible for flushing out and correcting. The fund was collecting data that was not available to its competitors: one of the contributors regularly went to the New York Fed in Manhattan to manually collect prices on bonds that were not public. Anticipating the rise of “high frequency trading” (ultra-fast trading machines), the fund invests early in technology and computers at the forefront to increase the speed of its transactions and be the first to seize opportunities. The “gross” anomalies in the markets have long since disappeared and the fund must innovate to remain efficient. “The mathematics we use can be sophisticated,” he told Institutional Investors, “but we start from data analysis, we do not have preconceived notions.” “In our business, we want action, we appreciate a certain level of volatility. In 2008, the year of the financial crisis, the Medallion fund jumped by 80%.

 

Internet digital world European retail business facing the Storm.

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Internet digital world European retail business facing the Storm. The European retail business has lived during these 60 past years several revolutions which have had a deep impact on its physiognomy and in our way of life and the society in its whole. The recent revolutions linked to the rise of internet and the digital world seem to take another step, it’s not the physiognomy of the cities which is changing anymore but the society in its whole.

Step 1: the neighbourhood businesses and the factories in Europe

Step 2: the birth of mass distribution and relocation of the production: the rise of the car industry

Step 3: the development of franchises, malls and pedestrianization of cities

Step 4:  Internet and the digital world desertification of the cities

In the 50s, right after World War 2, neighbourhood businesses are rising, the factories located right next to them are running in full swing. The consumers who are low motorized appreciate having nearby shops and so came several types of restaurants and services (Shoemakers, carpenters…) in the streets of the cities. In the 60s Europe knows a new type of business, mass distribution (mostly alimentary). France will be the first country in Europe to develop it, Italy and Germany being far behind. Visionaries buy agricultural land in the periphery of the cities and develop massive shops with massive parking. This type of retail will rise and create hypermarkets of 10 000m² and more with non-alimentary shopping mall around. These giants will have a significant power on the selling price encouraging industries to relocate first in Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia…) and then towards Asia (China, India, Vietnam) where the workforce is the cheapest. The auto industry starts on the same time a massive development as the consumers going to these hypermarkets will be in the need of buying a car. From the seventies to the 2000 and despite the oil crises, a global boom of businesses in every distribution channel is rising. Independents shop retailers first partly destroyed by the mass distribution start to join franchises. The pedestrian city centre leads to the gentrification of the independent businesses. Shopping malls with several types of businesses rise. However, the bistros and the small artisans decrease. From 600.000 in the 60s, the number of bistros in France fell to 35.00 in 2018.  Investors buy commercial real estate which leads to expensive rent prices in the business areas of the cities. If in the early 2000 online shopping took its first steps, not every time in a successful way. The new giant is born: Internet and the digital world. The shops in the mid-cities are closing, the small towns are becoming bedroom communities, mass distribution loses its market shares and even the prestigious brands are shaking.  Internet digital world giants such as Amazon or Alibaba are the new nightmare of the traditional businesses. In France the legislator created legal barriers to protect small businesses, stop the development of hypermarkets and reduce their blackmail to have discounts and bigger margins. But at least the legislator is helpless toward the new giants. Amazon is the biggest supermarket in the whole world even if it is fully digitalized. It is also the biggest group purchasing organization (GPO) in the world. What if Orwell’s Big Brother was in fact Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s CEO)?  It is unquestionable that the typical businesses will need to invest in market niches in order to survive. For instance, some textile manufacturers are now aiming new consumers such as seniors or oversized people who are not yet comfortable with online purchases. Others fashion brands based their communication on the “Never out of stock” which means that the general products are always available. It is directly opposed to the fashion shops whose collections change every 6 months.

But what about payments? How to deal with unpaid invoices? Are the overdues also evolving with Internet  digital world? Even if strong habits are still here in countries like France, we still observe a massive change of the way consumers pay. During the 50s and the 60s bill of exchanges and checks were the most used way of payment. When, Mr. Moreno invented the smart card in France everything changed. Way before its neighbours’ countries, French people will start using credit cards to the great pleasure of mass distribution discovering a new and simpler method of payment avoiding the insecurity of checks and the complicated manipulation of cash. Furthermore, it is still evolving with the evolution of our phones with which we can now pay with. Debt collection firms have also professionalized their approach, for example, the procedure by a collector in the context of home visits disappeared. Courts have gone digital, it is now possible to proceed to an online payment of your court fees with your credit card. Commercial information has gone digital as well, offering business information at extremely low prices causing the end of several investigator’s jobs. What hasn’t changed is the weight and cost of legal action in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Portugal…). Lawless zones emerged concerning low-amount debts. Debt collection firms will have to adapt to this new environment. It is likely that the dematerialisation of payments will deeply change the structure of the payments especially the supplier debit which may disappear. Businesses will have no choice but search for new ways of funding. In the first days of 2019 we face a dramatic situation mainly in France for the specialized retails like fashion or shoes. There is a massive disappearing of shops due of the fact that for many different reasons the consumers change their habits. For the mid-sized producers and the small shops there is only a future if they intensify their cooperation inventing new retail ways of selling.

In an Internet digital world retail cannot act as in the sixties or seventies, the actors must invest in perspective and prospective.

 

Georges Vonfelt