Poor choices, bad sums: Conviviality’s recipe for disaster

Rapid acquisitions helped the Bargain Booze owner grow revenues, but left it vulnerableIt took less than four weeks for a firm worth more than half a billion pounds to fall apart. On 8 March, Conviviality – not a household name, but a big firm with more than 4,000 staff – had a stock market value of more than £550m. Fast-forward less than a month and its finances have fallen apart, its bankers have balked at rescue plans and shares then worth 300p are now worth nothing. It will