Weāre keeping a close eye on whatās going on & if thereās anything you need to do, weāll let you know. Debenhams are sharing updates here by the way https://ir.debenhams.com/news-releases.
Thanks for clearing that up, it was a small amount so Iām not bothered if I lose it. Iāll put it down to experience. Risks of the game.
All this because the Debenhams didnāt want Mike Ashley to become CEO.
Well written. I donāt pretend to be an expert, but even I have been sat thinking to myself what other option is there?
Option 1: Go with the Sports Direct offer and although the board have lost the company and donāt get their own way, at least the 100s of employees and shareholders have at least a fighting chance.
Option 2: Reject all SD offers and fall into the hands of lenders, which puts shareholders and employees at a bigger risk of loosing their money/jobs.
I understand this is probably a simplified view and there is more going on here, but isnāt that basically the crux of it?
The main reason i still tend to use high-street retailers for is clothingā¦ on the basis that i find it a pain in the backside to send something back if it does not fit.
and despite knowing this, the only direction i can see retailers heading is online.
This was exactly my way of thinking until I discovered ASOS. Free delivery and returns from 100s of convinience stores made it much easier to order loads of different items/sizes and send it back. Much easier than spending the day trudging round the shopping centers
100% agree, ASOS are flying the flag when it comes to making the shopping/returns process easy as can be.
Asosā original proposition was very helpful, however now Asos has changed their policy
Itās a shame but itās not very surprising.
Sadly, their generous returns policy has been open to abuse - ie some people buying the clothes, wearing them and then returning them.
If you think for a second that Mike Ashley has the well-being of other shareholders and DEB employees at heart, Iāve got a bridge to sell you.
This is simply him trying to snap up another high street asset for cheap, and trying to invest good money after bad (heās already down Ā£150m), and failing, as the lenders - which have a much better bargaining position - called his bluff.
Interesting, I sold my shares Monday and my money is still in my unsettled cash. I then got this message stating today that Iām a shareholder still 
.
As I understand, when you sell shares, it takes 2 days for your transaction to settle with CREST (hence the T+2 nickname).
I hope @Freetrade_Team1 or @JamieP could correct me if I am wrong, but I think if it has not been two days since the sale, you are technically a shareholder still 
History has now resolved @Marcoās thoughtful question that started this thread:
Should i stay or should i goā¦? at 4p a share its got to be low riskā¦ can they really go belly up after 200 years of trading?
In terms of Debenhams 200 year history, the FT has a timeline chronicling the business:
https://www.ft.com/content/b784e306-5aad-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a
This will be a great learning experience for Mike Ashley, blinded by excessive hubris as his previous pre-pack administration deals have worked out wonderfully for him in the past, allowing him to essentially buy the assets without the any of the debt.
In the case of Debenhams, the creditors simply werenāt going to offer a pre-pack deal at the price he was offering when it was well below their acceptable debt recovery parameters. See the reports published today addressed to both creditors and shareholders:
āBDO LLP (āBDOā) undertook an independent review of the Groupās enterprise valuation, further described in point 9 of Appendix II, which concluded that the enterprise value of the Group was in the range of Ā£371m to Ā£427m. This is significantly lower than the amount of financial debt and pension obligations of the Group which Newco is subject to through the Transaction.ā
In terms of shareholders recovering their investment, including Mike Ashleyās Ā£150m stake, the report (pages 4 and 5) makes it clear:
However, despite the independent valuation analysis and our view that there is a very low likelihood of a distribution to the Companyās shareholders, the Transaction included provisions to ensure that the Group is immediately marketed for sale. This will determine for the Companyās benefit whether, against expectations, there is a bidder, with the benefit of a marketing process run on a stabilised platform, that would buy the business for a price that would repay the financial debt and secured pension liabilities in full and thus potentially yield a return for shareholders.
At this stage, we would expect that any surplus flowing to the Company from a sale which repays all debt would flow largely to shareholders, although there would need to be a liquidation process of the Company to advertise for any creditor claims which, if they materialised, would rank ahead of shareholders.
In hindsight then the question is would it not have been better for Mike Ashley to buy Ā£150 worth of debt from the creditors rather than buying the equity? Yet, this goes against his modus operandi of seeking to acquire the assets of failing businesses and turn them around. Maybe he thought his 30% stake would have given him more than enough influence.
From an investor point of view, Debenhams and other previous examples of Private Equity listings of companies loaded with debt and cooked books (there can be lots of hidden and nasty surprises that donāt show up in the accounts after a PE owner) is something that should be looked at carefully when considering investing in a post-PE company, or a company that acquires a PE-owned company.
That was our thinking @Vlad 
Although there is a lot of information in the press already, we wanted to make sure anyone who had a holding, settled or unsettled, was aware of the situation.
Weāll try to keep everyone who is effected by this updated as further information becomes available.
What happens to any shares you have in the company?
At the moment, nothing. You canāt buy anymore and you canāt sell them.
I think Freetrade are planning on letting us know what will happen next when things become clearer
But that have not been lost?
I donāt quite understand the question. Currently the shares are suspended. They still belong to you, but you cannot do anything with them. Think of it like having your assets frozen whilst the lenders decide what they are going to do next.
Likelyhood is they will be wiped and you will loose the money invested, but thats not been officially decided/announced yet (I dont think anyway?)
Thatās how I understand it anyway from reading what people have being saying above. I could of course be completely wrong 
Beginners questionsā¦
Surely if they were to attempt to sell the shares, no one would actually want to buy them as the company is in the state it is. Wouldnāt the share price tank even further?
I imagine it like trying to sell shampoo to a bald man. No matter how cheap you make it, he wonāt want it so you wonāt sell it