The wonder of Woolies - two years on

ASHBY'S ANSWERS

LVAM's head of UK equities Graham Ashby dissects the Woolworths Group, two years after it went into administration.

At the time, there was a great deal of concern many other retailers would follow suit and the UK high street would never recover.  Roll forward to today and it is clear many of these fears were overdone. Despite the poor state of the domestic economy, many established and relatively new retailers have been able to take advantage of Woolies’ demise by rapidly expanding their own store portfolios. For example, recent research from CB Richard Ellis shows 60% of the former Woolies stores have now been let. Many of these stores are now occupied by discount and food retailers and the majori...