West End braces to lose £2bn in Christmas sales due to new lockdown November 2, 2020 Retailers in London’ shopping district are set to lose up to £2bn in sales across the eight-week period up to Christmas, new data released today has found. According to the New West End Company, only 9m people will visit the West End in the festive season due to the new month-long lockdown. Previously the group, [...]
Retail tycoon Mike Ashley ‘furious’ after being ‘frozen out’ of Debenhams sale November 1, 2020 Retail mogul Mike Ashley is reportedly “furious” about being “frozen out” of an auction for collapsed department store Debenhams. The Sunday Times reported that lawyers for the tycoon have spent the last week complaining to Lazards and law firm Freshfields that Ashley’s Frasers Group had been given “woefully inadequate” information on the sale. Last week [...]
Sainsbury’s mulls sale of banking division October 31, 2020 The new Sainsbury’s boss is reportedly planning a sale of the supermarket’s banking arm as the impact of near-zero interest rates hit. The supermarket launched the bank in 1997 and now boasts more than 2m customers across a range of products including mortgages, home insurance and credit cards. But medium-sized banks are facing pressure as [...]
John Lewis hints at Christmas advert as retailer launches £5m charity initiative October 31, 2020 John Lewis has hinted at the content of its highly anticipated Christmas advert as it launched a charity campaign to feed more than 100,000 families over the festive period. The department store chain, which also owns Waitrose, will kick start an appeal in November to raise £5m for Fareshare and Home-Start to provide food, support [...]
Nightclub owner Deltic puts itself up for sale as cash dries up October 30, 2020 The UK’s largest nightclub owner Deltic Group has put itself up for sale after months of closure due to the Covid-19 crisis has driven it to the brink of collapse. Deltic, which owns brands including Pryzm and Atik, has begun a sale process while it considers other options, including a company voluntary arrangement, in a [...]
Sainsbury’s launches partnership with Deliveroo October 30, 2020 Sainsbury’s has launched a trial with Deliveroo in the latest partnership for the delivery app, which has seen demand for groceries soar during the coronavirus pandemic. The supermarket will offer the on-demand delivery service from its North End Crescent convenience story in Hammersmith, before expanding the trial to a further nine branches across the UK [...]
Bother: The startup looking to disrupt the grocery market October 30, 2020 The days of empty shelves and loo roll shortages seem a distant lockdown memory, but one London-based startup thinks it speaks to a wider problem within the UK’s grocery market. Startup Bother is on a mission to disrupt the saturated grocery market by offering what it considers to be a convenient and cheaper online alternative. [...]
Don’t panic: Verbier will open its slopes today October 30, 2020 This may have been among the worst years in living memory, but at least Verbs is open for business. The famous Verbier ski-resort, the slopes of choice for City bankers and Sloane Rangers alike, will open today, despite surging Swiss Covid cases. This, coupled with today’s news that UK travellers will no longer have to [...]
Scrapping the VAT refund for tourists would be catastrophic for the UK economy October 30, 2020 Retail, hospitality and tourism are three of the sectors that have been hardest hit by Covid-19 and the ongoing lockdown restrictions. Employing close to six million people, job losses in these sectors are expected to be devastating. The government should be doing all it can to support these businesses at this critical time. Instead, it [...]
Corona Impact Series: A vegan stop off Oxford Street October 29, 2020 In this series, City A.M. looks at the financial and economic impact of the ongoing pandemic on a range of small and medium-sized businesses across London. Today: how evaporated demand and high rent obligations ultimately proved fatal for Ethos. Meat-free and plant-based Ethos opened six years ago, catering for vegans by offering ‘deliciously different’ meat-free and [...]