Seven days in the Square Mile

Positive news that the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine will begin in Britain next week coincided with seismic events on the high street, where the collapse of the Arcadia Group, putting 13,000 jobs at risk, triggered the failure of efforts to rescue Debenhams and hastened the collapse of fashion chain Bonmarché, part of Philip Day’s stricken EWM Group. The Debenhams website was so overwhelmed by opportunistic bargainhunters that it crashed. But as retailers in England reopened, the hoped-for explosion of pent-up demand on “Wild Wednesday” failed to materialise. Analyst Springboard reported that footfall was down 24.1% compared to the same period last year.

Last ditch Brexit talks continued but, by midweek, were still at an impasse. France was reported to be pushing for a no-deal outcome “to soften up” Britain and bring a chastened UK back to the negotiating table next year. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned that a no-deal outcome would be more damaging to the economy in the long-run than coronavirus. UK mortgage approvals in October jumped to their highest level since 2007, according to BoE data, reflecting a “mad stampede” to buy houses before the stamp duty holiday ends in March. The price of bitcoin, which had sunk to below $4,000 at the start of the pandemic, hit a new all-time high of $19,857. Slack, a workplace app, was sold to business software giant Salesforce for $27.7bn. Tesco said it would repay £585m of business rates relief after being criticised for paying dividends to shareholders.