Asked how he went bankrupt, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises responds: “Gradually, then suddenly.” The same could be said of the way the relationship between retailers and landlords has descended into anarchy. Ten years ago, when it was a member of the FTSE 100 and months away from receiving a £3bn takeover offer, Intu Properties — then known as Capital Shopping Centres — enjoyed strong negotiating power with tenants thanks to its ownership of prime sites such as Lakeside in Essex. Internet sales were beginning to nibble at bricks-and-mortar retail — they rose nearly 50% to 6.7% of the market in the two years to July 2010 — but the rate of adoption looked gentle, and the received wisdom was

Source: The Times June 27, 2020 23:04 UTC