Below are the key morning and weekend press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
Hedge funds have placed bets worth £1.6 billion against British retailers as the industry braces for further pressure on the high street. Retailers including Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW), the B&Q owner Kingfisher (KGF) and Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) have been targeted by short-sellers as they bet that share prices in the sector will fall. Morrisons, the supermarket chain, is Britain’s most heavily shorted retailer with 6.12% of its shares, worth almost £300 million, on loan, according to data from the Financial Conduct Authority. Hedge funds including Blackrock, Citadel, Hengistbury, Pelham and Darsana Capital Partners have bet against the company.
There was more pain for retailers on the last shopping day before Christmas as footfall declined by almost 10%. The number of people going into shops on Christmas Eve fell by 9.4% compared to the same day in 2018, according to figures by Ipsos Retail Performance. Figures from Springboard told a similar story, with the number of shoppers visiting high streets down 8.9% compared with Christmas Eve last year, while shopping centres suffered a 8.4% fall. Retail parks were down 4.7%. Books and stationery stores were the only sector to experience year-on-year growth, with footfall up by 6.9%, according to Ipsos.
The Boxing Day sales were a damp squib for struggling high street retailers with the much smaller crowds blamed on a combination of bad weather and rival Black Friday discounts offered in November. Shoppers still started queueing before dawn outside shopping centres such as the Trafford Centre in Manchester and branches of high street chain Next. However, by closing time retail experts suggested visitor numbers were around 10% down on 2018. Retail analysts Springboard said the 9.8% drop was the biggest since 2010’s Boxing Day when the UK economy was at a virtual standstill. Diane Wehrle, its insights director, said the figure was very disappointing: “The drop is much bigger than anticipated, it seems like the steam was taken out of Christmas by Black Friday.”