Business Gazeteer

Published on Monday 8 December 2008 20:28

HOW to bag a Wag bag on the cheap

FANCY the Wag look without the need for a footballer's wage packet to fund it? There may be solution at hand, at least when it comes to the handbag department.

Fledgling online retailer, Bagnificent.co.uk, is offering young fashionistas the opportunity to, ahem, bag a handbag just like those sported by some of the world's most famous footballers' wives including the likes of Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole, right, and Coleen Rooney.

The Glasgow-based business sells designer sacks by the likes of Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Only, lacking the overheads associated with the average high street fashion emporium, it flogs them "for a fraction of the recommended retail price".

Housewife-turned-entrepreuneur Gerry Campbell, who launched the site last year, proclaims: "Most girls probably think such wonderful items are out of their reach but that's exactly why I started Bagnificent."

Ordinary women can now afford to purchase the most exclusive fashion accessories even if their partner does lack a Premiership-sized pay packet." We now await the launch of websites selling matching cut-price footballing husbands and budget fake tans.

KILLER QUOTE

"I NEED a much larger machine to help me. I need a shared machine. You need at least 5.5 million to six million cars (a year] to have a chance of making money ... Fiat is not even halfway there. And we are not alone in this."

Fiat's chief executive Sergio Marchionne, suggesting the Italian carmaker is too small to survive alone.

GOOD DAY

Glycomar

THINGS are looking pretty healthy for the Argyll-based biotechnology business after attracting a number of investors, among them Highlands and Islands Enterprise. HIE has taken a 125,000 equity investment in Glycomar, increasing the agency's holding from 10.2 per cent to 16.9 per cent.

BAD DAY

Horse-breeders

THE credit crunch is threatening Kentucky's famous horse-breeding industry, it emerged yesterday.

Wall Street bonus money is disappearing from the bloodstock business, lenders are denying credit and a stronger dollar is said to be deterring foreign buyers.

FACT OF THE DAY

197,000

RECORD numbers of companies are expected to go bankrupt next year in western Europe, according to the world's largest credit insurer.

A report by Euler Hermes, part of German insurance giant Allianz, forecasts 197,000 insolvencies in 2009, up from some 149,000 last year. The total is expected to hit 169,000 in the current year.

The United States is set to rack up 62,000 company failures next year, compared with 48,000 this year and 28,000 in 2007.