Tomahawk - to avoid after lockdown

Randy said:
What point are you trying to make? 🤔
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That 80% is more than 0%, and 70% is more than 0%.

Where does the 70-80% come from if the business doesn't exist, or if it lays off all its staff, sells up and starts again in two years time?
 
Andy_W said:
That 80% is more than 0%, and 70% is more than 0%.
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So your saying it's acceptable for Tomahawk to ask their employees for a loan or you don't have an issue with the idea because 70% is better than 0%?
 
Sounds like they're going to be told they can't do it anyway by the government. They'd have been smarter offering a small employee share option.
It's a huge PR gaff that will probably ensure the business does fail. Well done.
 
 
I'm saying if that's what it takes to keep the business afloat then it's better than 100 staff losing their jobs.

In that case the risk v reward for the staff is far better than the alternative.

I'm not saying that's the case here, but it could be.

I'm not saying it's morally right, right for tax purposes, not saying it's even lawful, not even saying it's nice, but none of them will keep the business alive if they cannot source alternate funding. It sounds to me like desperate times for desperate measures.

Don't forget, the director is not personally liable for company debts, if the company is limited, providing he's been acting in a legal way, this is basically the law.

It might be the case where he's trying to save 100k to line his own pockets, but equally, it might not be, unless you've seen the current P&L and balance sheet, liabilities etc there's no way of knowing.
 
JustTheGent said:
Think AndyW is trying to make a case for what's known as a race to the bottom.
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Nah, I just realise we've already hit the iceberg and half the ship is underwater.

There's a lot of sectors racing to the bottom, in a UK economy that is also racing to the bottom, and likely to recover slower than most. It's best to be prepared for this, rather than to think it's all rosy.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that any job is worth keeping a hold of, until you find something better, in these dodgy times and in struggling sectors.

It's not nice, it's not fair on staff and there isn't going to be the same number of jobs on the same pay, it just won't work. The sector is broken and it's not going to be immediately fixed just because we open the doors in May/ June.

The 80% on furlough have had it rough, but it could get rougher if the company folds when furlough ends, or could get rougher if they end up as one of the millions who didn't even make it to furlough or where furlough couldn't save their jobs.

I don't even know what the answer is, I'm just saying it's not easy for companies either who employ these people, they have to make the books balance or they cease to exist.
 
Mr_Fridge said:
If you hang on they’ll have a sympathetic article leading with quotes from the Tomahawk bosses tomorrow.
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It does seem to look like some sort of interest is behind the non-reporting. I'm quite shocked (and/or naive).
 
In response to the article the BBC ran today about Tomahawk, we issue the following:

“At no point has Tomahawk Steakhouse ever suggested that members of staff would be sacked if they did not sign a loan agreement.

“Like the rest of the hospitality industry, we have faced a challenging year, and our priority throughout has been to protect our people and our business. As part of this and in order to survive the coming months, we asked our staff to sign up to a voluntary agreement to help us cover the cost of Employer NIC/Pension amounts, in the form of a loan. Every single employee chose to sign up to this agreement.”
We were trying to keep all 500 plus staff in a job not out of one like it has been reported.
 
Hap said:
It does seem to look like some sort of interest is behind the non-reporting. I'm quite shocked (and/or naive).
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You would think they will have to report it. Northern Echo did so this afternoon and it's also in the Guardian and other publications. If/when they report it, they might just shut down the comments section on their site and Facebook. It will be interesting to see.

With regards to the Tomahawk statement. They say it's been a challenging year, yet they're expanding as they like and are not shy about letting everybody know about it, amongst other things.
 
Andy_W said:
"rainy day"? They've been pretty much shut for about 6 months of the last year, and probably on 50% takings the other 6 months, and shut for the next however long, that's a lot of rainy days.

Most startup businesses have to spread thin, they lose masses of money the first few years (some up to 10 years), which is expected, you have to do this to get started in the vast majority of cases. This mass expense would be part of the business model, plus allowing some extra I expect, but they've probably exceeded this by 1000%.

Staff losing 20% is a big deal, but they didn't have to stay on furlough, they could have quit and tried to get another job. The reason they have not done this is there were no other jobs to get, or they were happy at home on 80%.



It's probably more along the lines of we're pretty desperate, we need some help, but if you can't there's probably 1000 others who will. It's brutal, but business is, especially when you could be going to the wall.

Look, it's not ideal, but we're in a pandemic FFS, if staff think they can have half a year sat on 80% pay at home, and that's going to be the worst of it then they need to wake up, it could be 1000% worse, and likely will for the directors with their "rangerovers".
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Looking at the all restaurants they’ve been opening they can’t be too brassic can they!
99% of hospitality venues thought “we need money and fast....we’ll do takeaways diversify if we have to, think outside the box to try and see this through”.
Tomohawk on the other hand.....”Let’s open more restaurants (even though the ones we have are closed) in the most expensive places we can find and if it goes t*ts up we’ll ask our low paid staff for a loan or they can fcuk off”!
You clearly have the same attitude towards employees as the other chunt.
 
JustTheGent said:
You would think they will have to report it. Northern Echo did so this afternoon and it's also in the Guardian and other publications. If/when they report it, they might just shut down the comments section on their site and Facebook. It will be interesting to see.

With regards to the Tomahawk statement. They say it's been a challenging year, yet they're expanding as they like and are not shy about letting everybody know about it, amongst other things.
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The terms of the expansion could vary enormously from venue to venue. Some deals could have been entered into a long time ago and a rent free period agreed. During what was thought to be a relatively short lockdown, proceeding with fitting out is not a stupid decision, nor is announcing the opening of a new restaurant as a lockdown is lifted.

We just don’t know the details, but we do know the staff were asked to loan wages rather than a straight pay cut, so it suggests the company intend paying staff their dues in time and that they see it as a matter of time before they bounce back strong as long as they can reach reopening.

In my experience, when times get rough, directors tend to put staff before themselves for as long as they can.
 
WoodallServices said:
Looking at the all restaurants they’ve been opening they can’t be too brassic can they!
99% of hospitality venues thought “we need money and fast....we’ll do takeaways diversify if we have to, think outside the box to try and see this through”.
Tomohawk on the other hand.....”Let’s open more restaurants (even though the ones we have are closed) in the most expensive places we can find and if it goes t*ts up we’ll ask our low paid staff for a loan or they can fcuk off”!
You clearly have the same attitude towards employees as the other chunt.
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Tomahawk have been doing takeaways, at least the Potto one has, to my certain knowledge.
 
Lefty said:
The terms of the expansion could vary enormously from venue to venue. Some deals could have been entered into a long time ago and a rent free period agreed. During what was thought to be a relatively short lockdown, proceeding with fitting out is not a stupid decision, nor is announcing the opening of a new restaurant as a lockdown is lifted.

We just don’t know the details, but we do know the staff were asked to loan wages rather than a straight pay cut, so it suggests the company intend paying staff their dues in time and that they see it as a matter of time before they bounce back strong as long as they can reach reopening.

In my experience, when times get rough, directors tend to put staff before themselves for as long as they can.
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Total nonsense. The expansion has been taking place involving premises that have become vacant during the pandemic. The owner is on record saying he was looking for somewhere in London during the first lockdown.

Can you show evidence of directors putting staff before themselves? And how in the case of Tomahawk are directors putting their staff before themselves? They are literally taking money out of the pockets of their employees rather than dipping into their own likely deep pockets. Anyone for a Ferrari? 😆
 
WoodallServices said:
Looking at the all restaurants they’ve been opening they can’t be too brassic can they!
99% of hospitality venues thought “we need money and fast....we’ll do takeaways diversify if we have to, think outside the box to try and see this through”.
Tomohawk on the other hand.....”Let’s open more restaurants (even though the ones we have are closed) in the most expensive places we can find and if it goes t*ts up we’ll ask our low paid staff for a loan or they can fcuk off”!
You clearly have the same attitude towards employees as the other chunt.
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How the hell would you know? You don't know how these we're financed, leased or agreed.
How much would "takeaway" trade cover for massive restaurants, in expensive areas? It's probably less than 20% of typical takings, yet would still incur the vast majority of outgoings, it would literally bleed to death.

There's a reason there's not 200 seater "take-aways", as it just won't work for a duration. The length of that duration is likely set by funds reserves and what finance can be established, which for a 3-year company is not going to be a lot.

You're making wild conclusions based on about 2% of the information, the people with all the information seem to be quite concerned.

Have you ever owned and run a business? If so, anywhere near this level?
 
I see they've finally put out a statement:

In response to the article the BBC ran today about Tomahawk, we issue the following:
“At no point has Tomahawk Steakhouse ever suggested that members of staff would be sacked if they did not sign a loan agreement.
“Like the rest of the hospitality industry, we have faced a challenging year, and our priority throughout has been to protect our people and our business. As part of this and in order to survive the coming months, we asked our staff to sign up to a voluntary agreement to help us cover the cost of Employer NIC/Pension amounts, in the form of a loan. Every single employee chose to sign up to this agreement.”
We were trying to keep all 500 plus staff in a job not out of one like it has been reported.

Seems to me to have been blown out of proportion and people getting the wrong end of the stick.
 
Andy_W said:
I see they've finally put out a statement:

In response to the article the BBC ran today about Tomahawk, we issue the following:
“At no point has Tomahawk Steakhouse ever suggested that members of staff would be sacked if they did not sign a loan agreement.
“Like the rest of the hospitality industry, we have faced a challenging year, and our priority throughout has been to protect our people and our business. As part of this and in order to survive the coming months, we asked our staff to sign up to a voluntary agreement to help us cover the cost of Employer NIC/Pension amounts, in the form of a loan. Every single employee chose to sign up to this agreement.”
We were trying to keep all 500 plus staff in a job not out of one like it has been reported.

Seems to me to have been blown out of proportion and people getting the wrong end of the stick.
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So what did suitability for the role to be reviewed mean?
 
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