RETAIL
High street fashion chain New Look, which operates over 400 UK stores, is reportedly poised to secure a £100m debt refinancing, which will give it much-needed breathing room in a challenging trading environment for clothing retailers. Advanced talks with Blazehill Capital and Wells Fargo to replace a term loan that matures in June 2024 are understood to be going well.
Major landlords, suppliers and other creditors are understood to have backed a bid led by HMV tycoon Doug Putman, to rescue beleaguered discount retail chain Wilko, as administrators PwC try to secure a last-minute deal to save 8,000 jobs.
ECONOMY
The UK economy has made a stronger recovering during Covid that previously thought, according to revised Office for National Statistics (ONS) data. Rather than shrinking 1.2% in the final 3 months of 2021, as previously reported, the economy actually grew 0.6%, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
FINANCE
Higher interest rates are set to impact UK businesses next year, with around 7,000 businesses ‘likely to fail’ every quarter during 2024, according to The Centre for Economics and Business Research thinktank. Debt taken on during the pandemic, with higher borrowing costs and the cost-of-living crisis, is set to drive many businesses under, particularly in the retail and hospitality space.
TECH
OpenAI, the firm behind generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, is reportedly on track for $1bn of annual sales as businesses rapidly adopt the new technology after global awareness of ChatGPT exploded at the start of 2023. After rapid consumer adoption it went on to become the fastest growing app in history, exceeding 100m users in less than 3 months, but this record has since been beaten by Meta’s answer to X, Threads, which reached this target in a matter of days.
SUSTAINABILITY
Fast-fashion retailers plan for an EU crackdown on waste, with new recycling warehouses to turn used clothes into raw materials. By 2030, the EU has said it aims for all textile products sold with the union to “a great extent” be made of recycled fibres, as well as ticking other sustainability boxes of being repairable, recyclable..etc, and fashion businesses are responding.
ENTERTAINMENT
Can this girl do no wrong? Taylor Swift breaks records with tickets for her Eras Tour concert movie already a blockbuster hit, just 24 hours after going on sale. It has been reported that Swift’s new film reached ¢26m in a day, a new record for movie theatre operator AMC Entertainment, beating previously held records held by ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ which achieved $16.9m.
PROPERTY
Property prices are falling faster than expected, with values now dropping at their quickest rate since June 2009, data from lender Nationwide has revealed. Demand for homes needing a larger mortgage has plummeted, according to reports, as higher interest rates impact affordability. Mortgage approvals in recent months are understood to be 20% below pre-pandemic levels.
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