What are your thoughts on The House of Fraser?

It is well known that the high street is under pressure, including The House of Fraser. I think micro and macro issues are at play here, some being:

• the high street generally is under pressure from losing sales to the internet
• there is an increase in cost pressures due to the fall in the pound against the dollar etc resulting in increased import prices
• increase in minimum wage/ living wage
• increase in business rates
• pension contributions (increases) and deficit
• the ownership of House of Fraser – in recent years the company was passed to a Chinese conglomerate that wasn’t close to trends on the high street and hadn’t invested to stay up to date and relevant which made it less compelling to shop there.

The company was unable to continue to trade (due to its insolvency) and first tried to do a CVA which was opposed by the landlords in the main which forced the company into Administration. It was a prepack Administration where the Administrator has already gone through a marketing process to find out who would be the highest bidder for the business so they are able to sell it almost immediately on appointment which minimises disruption to the business. It was bought by Mike Ashley for around £90 million and he now is in the process of looking at the business to try to renegotiate deals with landlords and re model the business to make it profitable again.