By: Felix Armstrong

Retail Reporter Felix Armstrong is City AM's retail reporter, covering retail, hospitality and property news. He has previously written for The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The i Paper. Email Felix at Felix.Armstrong@cityam.com

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Heathrow slams regulator plans to ‘take UK backwards’ by slashing investment

June 11, 2026

Heathrow has issued a scathing rebuttal of the regulator’s plans to crack down on the airport’s spending and expansion, warning that this risks “taking the UK backwards”. The UK’s largest airport said that the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) “proposed cuts to our investment plans risk taking the UK backwards and weakening our competitiveness”. The CAA [...]
Wizz Air ‘resilient’ after route cancellations wipe out profit

June 11, 2026

Wizz Air has insisted its decision to halt operations in Vienna and Abu Dhabi positioned the airline for “long term resilience,” despite causing net profit to drop by nearly 99 per cent. The FTSE 250-listed airline said its slump in net profit from €214m to €1m was due to the “one-off headwinds” of these route [...]
Hospitality leaders ramp up pressure on Labour to slash VAT

June 11, 2026

Leaders of top hospitality firms have ramped up pressure on Labour to slash VAT, which they warn is leading to hundreds of thousands of job losses. Pub chains JD Wetherspoon, Fuller’s and Greene King, as well as hotel giant Hilton and Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca, have thrown their weight behind a campaign to cut Value [...]
More than 80 retail bosses urge Starmer to tackle youth unemployment crisis

June 10, 2026

More than 80 retail bosses have called on the Prime Minister to set out urgent measures to tackle youth unemployment, warning that the “ladder of opportunity for young people is wobbling”. The chiefs of leading retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and John Lewis have called on Sir Keir Starmer to safeguard the position of retail as [...]
Boots eyes £7.5bn sale in blow to hopes of London IPO

June 10, 2026

The owners of Boots are weighing up a £7.5bn sale which would dash hopes of a London listing and deal another blow to the UK’s stock exchange. Sycamore Partners, the private equity firm which bought Boots’ parent company for $23.7bn last year, has been in talks with a number of suitors since before Easter. The [...]
WH Smith shares crater after outlook slashed on Iran war travel chaos

June 10, 2026

WH Smith shares have cratered after the retailer slashed its profit forecast amid the prolonged slowdown in global travel and slump in consumer confidence caused by the Iran war. Shares in the FTSE 250 retailer slumped by 16 per cent on Wednesday’s market open to 415p, leaving the stock down more than 35 per cent [...]
Fuller’s slams ‘unprecedented government interference’ in pub sector

June 10, 2026

The boss of Fuller’s has slammed Labour for “unprecedented government interference” into the pub sector, which he says is to blame for 5,800 pubs closing in a decade. Simon Emeny, executive chairman of Fuller, Smith and Turner, has launched a broadside against the government’s hikes to business rates, national insurance contributions and alcohol duty. “When [...]
Real estate firms going bust at record rate as property market slumps

June 10, 2026

Real estate companies are going bust at the fastest rate seen in a decade, City AM can reveal, in a further sign that the UK’s property market is taking a battering. As many as 762 real estate-related businesses have become insolvent in the UK since the start of the year, a City AM analysis of [...]
Padel craze drives demand for industrial property

June 10, 2026

Padel operators have leased out more than one million square feet of industrial space in the last 18 months, as the UK’s newest sports craze takes over the country’s warehouses. The volume of square feet snapped up for Britain’s fastest-growing racquet sport in the past year and a half is almost seven times that in [...]
Pret A Manger dumps US franchise agreement after just two years

June 9, 2026

Pret A Manger has dumped the franchise agreement which it had launched to expand in the US after just two years, its latest accounts revealed. The coffee chain formed a joint venture, known as Empire JointStar, with its franchise operator Dallas Holdings in October 2023, in a bid to accelerate its expansion in the US. [...]

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By: Felix Armstrong

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