When a company collapses, there are bound to be losers.

But you can be certain that there will be some winners.

Take Allders, the department store chain with a branch in Oxford, which is on its knees.

Sir David Garrard, £693,000-a-year chairman of the Minerva group, which owns 60 per cent of Allders, is leaving the company reportedly with a golden handshake of £35m.

Will Allders staff here and elsewhere be treated as generously? You bet they won't.

More than 100 employees in Oxford have been told they can take redundancy. Alternatively, they can keep their jobs, but they won't be paid for six months.

That is some choice for people with families to feed and mortgages and other bills to pay.

There are also severe doubts about the Allders' pension fund, which is estimated to have a £60m 'black hole' and is almost certain to be wound up.

Doesn't big business sometimes make you sick?