UK’s greatest business disasters

At London Presence we want to lead you on your business journey by giving you the best possible insight and tips for your business ventures. That said here’s our top five monumental business cock-ups, in a rare post about what not to do:

5. Dasani – Coca Cola branded tap water

After going down a storm in the states with Americans drinking 1.3bn litres of Dasani a year, its reception in the UK sent Coca Cola’s ‘purified’ water back down the storm drains from whence it sprung; it emerged that a factory in Kent used ordinary tap water as the source. To make matters worse for the corporate giants, Thames Water admitted that the 95p bottles contained only 0.03p worth of water.

Within weeks of the $13m UK launch, Dasani was pulled from the shelves and it’s European venture cancelled. But come on Coca Cola, just because the Americans fell for it, did you really think we were going to stand around and let you sell our tap water back to us in a bottle?!

4. Boo.com – boo-hoo for the boo boom

Miraculously raising £100m from such notable investors as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, boo.com was once valued at £250m in the 1990s. However the lavish lifestyle that afforded the founders soon caught up with them.

Their excessive jet-setting and expensive way of life began to take it’s toll on the profit margins. The staff of 400 strong was equally spoiled with luxury offices and over-inflated salaries, typifying gross mismanagement and poor financial strategy.

After squandering £125 million, the company was sold for less than £2 million in assets.

3. Ratner’s jewellery – and thus the phrase ‘doing a Ratner’ was born

Everything was going fine: Gerald Ratner had been part of the family business for 25 years selling mid-level jewellery – he then built up a chain of stores during the 80s to the point where the company was thriving with pre-tax profits measuring £110 million. That is until 1991 when he said this:

“We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, ‘How can you sell this for such a low price?’ I say, because it’s total crap.”

This was followed up by his description of a pair of earrings as, “cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn’t last as long.”

Within weeks he had devalued the company by £500 million. He was paid off with £375,000 and the firm was renamed Signets to expunge all connection with Gerald Ratner altogether.

2. Equitable Life – “a decade of regulatory failure”

After almost collapsing in 2000, it emerged in Lord Pemrose’s critical report of 2004, that Equitable Life had been promising their policy holders more money than it actually had for over ten years. The report named the company as “the author of its own misfortunes.” This report was called by the Treasury department of the UK Government following the public outcry after pensions and retirement savings were cut dramatically. The controversy continued when the report’s findings spawned a £4 billion legal action in the High Court, when Equitable Life sued 15 ex-directors £2 billion for negligence. In 2005 the case was abandoned by Equitable Life.

In July this year and after a 4 year investigation, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman issued her report “Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure”. In it she recommended that the government should issue a formal apology and set up a compensation scheme.

The saga continues…

1. Barings Bank – broken by the definitive rogue trader

At the heart of this story of Barings Bank and its cataclysmic £827 million plunge into bankruptcy is the tragic protagonist who had it all and blew a whole lot more. The derivatives trader Nick Leeson began out of Singapore by making successful speculative trades for the bank earning them £10 million in 1992. By the end of that year the pendulum had swung into the red by £2 million – owed by the bank unbeknownst to them. By 1994 the debt was £208 million.

In early 1995 the losses were so great he fled with his then wife before he was apprehended and extradited back to Singapore where he was charged for fraud and deception and sentenced to six and a half years in Changi Prison in Singapore.

The bank collapsed before a Dutch bank bought them and assumed all Barings’ liabilities for the nominal sum of £1.