"The UK Retail Trading Environment is Tough" - Monsoon Accessorize Spokesperson, As Company Mulls CVA

Monsoon Accessorize, owned by its founder Sri Lanka-born Peter Simon, who was inspired to start the company following a road trip, declared via a spokesman that "The UK retail trading environment is tough" and in a bid to reduce costs will continue to reduce its store portfolio. Deloitte has been hired to help the firm negotiate a CVA or company voluntary arrangement, a controversial insolvency procedure used by firms like Debenhams, New Look, Mothercare and Byron in recent years.

Don't Blame Brexit is War Cry from LMH Grad Dom Raab

Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab (who took over from David Davis in July 2018), is chastising companies for blaming bad performance on Brexit. This is particularly in light of John Lewis' reported 99% drop in first half profits. Sir Richard Mayfield, Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, said "these are challenging times in retail". Dominic studied at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford. Richard (real first name Andrew) has an MBA from Cranfield.

Blockbuster Gets Busted

Another victim in the UK high street rampage (Blockbuster have around 1000 stores in the UK) and another round of new business for Deloitte! Deloitte have taken the honourable step of promising to honour all Blockbuster vouchers (e.g. vouchers to rent two movies a month for three months, and the like). Founded in Dallas in the era of the VHS, Blockbuster was already bankrupt in 2010, and rescued by US satellite TV operator Dish Network in 2011. Blockbuster has been overtaken to some degree by LoveFilm which has 40% of the rental market in the UK. Managing Director Martin Higgin's compensation in 2010 was £613,000, a ludicrous sum-of-money for a company that was basically being run "business-as-usual".