Reports of the high street’s death are greatly exaggerated October 21, 2015 Reports of the high street’s death are greatly exaggerated. At least in London. Forget e-commerce or retail parks: When it comes to what we like best, a majority of Britons still rate the high street best, as a new study has found that Londoners visit our high streets 97 times per year. This is quite [...]
You want fries with that? Metro Bank opens a drive-thru branch October 21, 2015 METRO Bank is bringing a little slice of American life to London, with its first drive-thru bank offering customers cash “from the comfort of their cars”. Customers will be able to pay in cheques and withdraw cash at two drive-thru windows, staffed by cashiers in a retail park in Southall. The drive-thru branch will be [...]
City Moves for 21 October 2015 | Who’s switching jobs October 20, 2015 RO REAL ESTATE The commercial property investment and development firm has appointed Nick Moore as senior investment manager. He joins from Lloyds, where he was director in its real estate division. Moore has 15 years’ experience in commercial real estate and has also held roles at PRUPIM, Warner Estates and DTZ. WILLIAM BLAIR Michael Collinson [...]
Developer Irvine Sellar unveils £1bn “Shard of west London” to rejuvenate Paddington October 20, 2015 Irvine Sellar, the man behind The Shard, has unveiled his latest proposals for a larger-than-life tower – and they don't disappoint. The developer has used Shard architect Renzo Piano to design a 65-storey building for a site next to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. The new building will be 65 storeys high (rather than its [...]
Do you want fries with that? Metrobank opens London’s first drive thru bank October 20, 2015 Metro Bank is bringing a little slice of American life to London, with its first drive-thru bank offering customers cash "from the comfort of their cars." Customers will be able to pay in cash and cheques and withdraw funds at two drive thru windows, staffed by cashiers in a retail park in Southall. The drive-thru [...]
Trouble for the big four supermarkets as Aldi and Lidl growth speeds up again October 20, 2015 German discounters Aldi and Lidl both saw growth rates return to over 17 per cent over the last three months, dashing hopes for the Big Four that a slowdown earlier in the year may have been part of a longer term trend. The cut-price chains have been the fastest-growing grocers in the sector for some time now. But in [...]
Judge P2P firms on whether they’re profitable – not just on how much money they’ve lent October 19, 2015 Three years ago this week, the veteran venture capitalist Robin Klein made the case in these pages for greater support for UK high growth technology companies in their push into mainstream London capital markets. Over time, confidence grew and several good firms were helped onto the public markets through the London Stock Exchange’s High Growth [...]
Asda backtracks on London expansion plans as it seeks to revive flagging sales October 19, 2015 Asda has become the latest supermarket to backtrack on store opening plans after scrapping ambitions to expand in London in favour of reviving deteriorating sales at existing stores. US-owned supermarket chain said it is “temporarily” slowing down the planned expansion of smaller format stores in London as well as its programme to develop more stand-alone petrol [...]
Reiss to ramp up expansion overseas after doubling full-year profits October 19, 2015 Family-owned fashion retailer Reiss has said it plans to ramp up expansion overseas next year by adding 40 new stores, after it revealed record sales and profits. The upmarket high street brand, a favourite with royals and celebrities including the Duchess of Cambridge and Olivia Palermo, said strong growth through its website and existing stores help drive a [...]
UK footfall recovers in September but high streets lose out to retail parks October 19, 2015 Retailers enjoyed more visitors through their doors in September, boosted by the onset of the colder autumn weather and the August bank holiday falling into last month’s survey period. Footfall was almost flat on September last year, down by just 0.2 per cent, figures released today by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and retail analysts Springboard [...]