Southern Cross closure concerns stocks and shares - and care of 31,000 elderly

LONDON BRIEFING:Big care home operator shuffles off mortal coil, as Jamie Oliver peels off his Sainsbury's label

FOR SHAREHOLDERS in Southern Cross, the sorry tale of Britain’s biggest care homes operator is at an end. The company, once valued by the stock market at more than £1 billion, is shutting itself down and the shares, once traded at £6 apiece, are now worthless.

For many of Southern Cross’s 31,000 elderly and vulnerable residents, however, the nightmare continues. While around one-third of the company’s 752 care homes are to be taken under control of their landlords – those who already operate in the care homes industry and who will run the homes themselves – a solution has still to be found for the bulk of the Southern Cross estate.

The company’s decision to break itself up became inevitable after its landlords, which number more than 80 in total, decided they’d had enough, bringing months of torturous restructuring negotiations to an end. The core problem for the loss-making Southern Cross was its massive rent bill – £230 million a year. This was a legacy of the reckless expansion of recent years, funded by sale-and-leaseback deals on its homes that saddled the group with ruinous upward-only rent reviews.

Residents of the 500 or so homes that do not have new operators face renewed uncertainty in the months ahead as the landlords thrash out plans to run the homes taken back. They range from the large property investment firm NHP, an experienced care homes landlord, to smaller companies that own only a handful of the properties and have no industry experience.

The GMB union, which is fearful for the prospects of Southern Cross’s 41,000 employees, describes the landlords as “a rag-bag bunch”, many of which are in financial difficulties themselves.

Those without experience of the industry are unlikely to want to run the homes themselves and would in any case be denied the necessary registration. For some residents and care home workers, it will be business as usual, as many will be offered continued employment by the new operators. Southern Cross will continue to run the homes until new arrangements are in place.

The government insists that no elderly residents will be left homeless as a result of the Southern Cross collapse but it is still very possible that some of the homes will have to be closed, and the residents transferred. This would be a traumatic experience for frail old folk.

What’s worse, it will be several months before all the homes can be transferred to their new operators, leaving thousands of Southern Cross residents fearing the worst. At least shareholders already know their fate.

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Who will be the new face of Sainsbury’s? After 11 years and 100 television ads, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is parting company with the supermarket chain, Britain’s second-largest. The Christmas campaign, to be launched in November, will be his last for the group.

Both sides described the decision as mutual – Oliver wants to spend more time on his charitable foundation and Sainsbury’s reckons it is time for a change. It’s certainly been a lucrative partnership. Oliver is reckoned to have earned over £1 million a year for being the face of the food retail group, while Sainsbury’s sales have certainly benefited from the Oliver effect, with products featured in the ads enjoying massive rises in sales.

Chief executive Justin King hailed the Oliver ad campaign as “one of the most successful and mutually rewarding ever” in the food industry. But there have been tensions in the relationship, too – Oliver was vocal in his campaign against battery chickens a couple of years ago and did not spare Sainsbury’s from criticism. The group eventually phased out its use of battery farms, much to his delight.

While there was some surprise in the industry that such a successful partnership is being ended, there was also a feeling that perhaps the Jamie Oliver brand has grown too big for Sainsbury’s. The chef’s business empire, taking in restaurants, events catering, books, cookware, food products, herbs and even grow-bags, has expanded rapidly, as has his interest in food education. He has also become increasingly involved in television projects.

The success of the Oliver years were in marked contrast to the group’s previous TV ad campaign, Value to Shout About in 1999, featuring comedian John Cleese shouting at store staff through a megaphone. They were voted the most irritating ads of the year and Sainsbury’s, then run by Dino Adriano, saw its average store spend fall as a result.

Announcing the split yesterday, a Sainsbury’s spokesman quipped: “A lot of marriages don’t last this long.” The supermarket group will certainly be hoping that its next partnership is equally successful.

Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardianin London