The most important number in a company finances are its ongoing operating costs - the one-off hits obviously need to be taken into account, but they will swallow them if they know their going into a year where projected turnover outstrips projected costs.
So when the company says it has no more money to fund further rises, you dont think finances are as tight as the company is saying either then ?
Ok, I should clarify that. Every business likes to make sure the ongoing costs - ie, the fixed bills likes premises costs and salaries are lower than the ongoing projected turnover. That way it can make a profit. Occasionally businesses will encounter one-off costs, like those often referred to as 'restructuring charges', that mean the business loses money in a financial year. An example is if a business is in trouble, and spending more on fixed costs than it is earning, it is sensible to take the hit on redundancy costs to make future years profitable. There are many ways that any business will fund those costs - including dipping into past profits, or cutbacks on planned projects, or funded through the bank. The last company I work for had a £30m overdraft facility with the bank to cover such eventualities, but the bank only provided that if the business could show they were keeping fixed costs below turnover. I don't know it VS has a similar facility, but I wouldn't be surprised.