The Biggest Companies Aren't Too Big To Fail

There was a time when people thought that the biggest and oldest of companies were far too big to fail, even in the worst economic conditions. But unfortunately this is now not the case. The obvious examples of this would be Rover, Woolworths, Lehman Brothers and so on. This can also now be applied to the biggest of double glazing companies. Last week it was revealed that a significant company in our sector was in a big mess itself, one which it may not get out of.

The smaller companies in our industry know exactly of the problems being experienced by most small to medium businesses in every sector. Poor cashflow is still a big problem, and undercutting is rife now. All of this will continue to undermine the double glazing industry. But the problems of cash flow and bad debts are now affecting the biggest of companies, so it can only be assumed that the national companies in the double glazing industry will be affected in some way, it would be unrealistic to think otherwise.

The bigger the business, the more overheads they will have and the more debt they will owe. Not so many years ago this wouldn't have been such a problem. But now the flow of cash isn't raging in as it once was, and the banks are being much more prudent. More and more large firms are posting bigger and bigger loses. Take EMI today for example. The company is 113 years old and has posted it's biggest ever loss of £1.75 billion pounds and there are now fears for the company. That business was bought for $8 billion dollars in 2007 by private equity group Terra Firma. But changing trading coniditons has left the institution floundering in massive pools of debt.

The age where a company is too big to fail ended when Rover went under. It is more than possible that one of our national double glazing companies could fall to the same fate.