British Retail

All, 

The negative stream of news from the UK high street continues as Jamie Oliver’s restaurants enter administration and Philip Green closes 23 of his stores. Between Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Top Shop it will be close to 200 stores altogether. 

Pizza: As the CVAs are queueing up, it is hard to imagine that Pizza Express won’t take the opportunity to find itself those £25m we wrote about in our analysis. 

New Look: It’s no news that TopShop have been under pressure for a while. The fashion chain - positioned at a significant premium to New Look - had for a while been suffering from the same online substitution / pureplays as New Look has when it’s owner put fuel in the fire with his own behaviour. Still, the pressure on the high street is evidently continuing and our expectations for New Look (not underlevered - even after the restructuring) may have to take some further correction. 

Matalan: All is quiet at the Hargreaves. We don’t think that Matalan are suffering from the same symptoms as much as it's more fashionable rivals are. If anything, there seem to be two trends at play: one is towards even faster online fashion (ASOS, Missguided,…) and the other is back to basics for all those mothers and housewives who are forced to buy a little more responsibly, particularly in times of uncertainty. 

No changes to the portfolio at this time.

Wolfgang