papa流利说商务英语 Level 6 Unit 1 Part 1(五)Company Finances

2021年1月9日发(作者：蒋以化)
流利说商务英语 Level 6 Unit 1 Part 1(五)Company Finances
Hey, Professor Bloom, my name is Lucy.
This morning, you mentioned that the company Nick Spade is on the verge of
bankruptcy.
If you have time, could I discuss their situation with you more?
Why has she come to see him? To discuss Nick Spade's financial situation.

Of course, Lucy. What do you want to know?
Well, I'm curious about how a company this famous could suddenly be in the red.
Well, Nick Spade has been declining for a long time, but its last financial quarter was
especially bad.
Their store sales dropped by 11%.
For a global company like Nick Spade, it was 60 million dollars.
What happened to the company last quarter? Their sales decreased sharply.
They are on the verge of bankruptcy.

If their sales have fallen so much, it must have hurt their net profits.
It has. Nick Spade's loss the last quarter was around 150,000,000 dollars.
Same quarter last year it was only 7,000,000 dollars.

Why are they having so much trouble, though?
Several years ago they were doing well, weren't they?
Well, retail has changed a lot over the last few years and Nick Spade didn't
anticipate the changes.

What didn't the company anticipate?changes in the retail industry
The company has not kept up with market changes.

More shops have been buying cheaper fast fashion, but Nick Spade kept its prices
high.
Their biggest mistake, though, was that they didn't anticipate the rise of online
shopping.
Online shopping has become extremely popular, but Nick Spade has focused on
building physical stores.

So now they'll have to close more stores?
Right, but even then Nick Spade is still in trouble.
To build their stores, they had taken out a loan of over a billion dollars in debt, which
will be due in three years. And in judging from their current financial status, they
won't be able to pay it back.
Their biggest mistake was that they haven’t invested in online shopping.