Finance Blog

Pizza Express is on the chopping board to be sliced up. Pizza Express has been rolling dough since 1965 when they opened their first restaurant in Soho. The company are known for their distinctive original recipes that they’ve used for their pizzas since opening, however they are now in talks for a company debt reconstruction plan.  The reconstruction will result in the bondholders of Pizza Express being in line for a large slice of the company hopefully with extra toppings. Bonds can be defined as “medium or long-term bearer-from debt security, that commits the issuer to a specific repayment date and to interest pavements at a fixed or variable rate”  (Watson, 2010) . Pizza Express is one of the UK’s most well-known Italian restaurants and has 436 UK stores (BBC News, 2014) , but this does not mean that the overall organisation has not faced any struggles over the years. The current bondholders of Pizza Express have not been happy with the way the company has been ...

An inside job explained, what really went on in the worlds most influential organisations? From watching the financial film Inside Job released in 2010 my eyes were opened to many issues that i was unaware of. It left me feeling that can we ever trust any information is given to us from influential members of organisations. The film outlined the many issues that occurred in the 2008 global recession in a wave of events resulting from the incompetence of the worlds largest investment banks and insurance companies. During the time of the great recession there was a global economic downturn that devastated the worlds financial markets along with the real-estate industry  (HISTORY.COM EDITORS, 2017). The effects from the great recession meant that there was a huge increase in house foreclosures worldwide, resulting in million of people losing their homes and life savings.  In fact, according to real estate data company "RealtyTrac", ...

Trade off theories vs Modigliani and Miller. Using trade off theories within an organisation can bring many benefits to a company. The Trade off theory of capital structure can be defined as  “ The taxation of corporate profits and the existence of bankruptcy penalties are market imperfections that are central to a positive theory of the effect of leverage on the firm's market value.” (Kraus, 1973). However some could argue that using the methods of Modigliani and Miller are more relevant to modern day organisations.The  Modigliani and Miller   theory believes that a company’s WACC remains unchanged at all levels of gearing  (Watson & Head, 2016) There are three different methods a firm can use when financing a business  according to  Modigliani and Mille r , they can borrow money, spend the profits that they have saved and use the insurance of shares. In its simplest form is based on the idea that with certain assumptions in place, there is ...

Can the merger of two takeaway businesses leave a bad review? Just Eat PLC is the one of the UK's largest and most popular online takeaway ordering platforms. The takeaway provider has over 16,000 restaurants now on the platform and serving over 3 million customers worldwide  (PLC, 2019).   Ordering a takeaway can be a spur of the moment decision and the online system that "Just Eat" provide streamlines the ordering process and brings many benefits to their customers.  So why is Just Eat so popular?  One of the main benefits that is brought from using the online ordering system is that you can see other customers reviews, therefore giving a true insight into what the food from each restaurant is like. This aspect is great when wanting to try some where new or maybe ordering from a area where you have never visited before. Along with being able to see other reviews ordering online means you can also pay online, mak...

Global politics fire fuelled by an oil spill. The BBC documentary " $30 Billion Blowout" was a really insightful  60 minutes into one of the largest oil accident ends  and  Worst environmental disaster America had ever seen. The Deep Water Horizon oil spill that occurred  on the 20th of April 2010 was the largest "accident" that had ever occurred  on any of BP's oil rigs across the globe.  11 people sadly lost their lives because  of this event but this was just the beginning  o f the trauma this explosion brought to one of the UK's oldest and largest oil companies. The explosion was stated to be caused by the company cutting safety measurements in an attempt to slim the business down and cut costs. The specific risks that were caused through the company's cost cutting was a  flawed design for the cement used to seal the bottom of t he well, a  test of that seal identified problems but was "incor...