Poundland, Claire’s, HobbyCraft, Bodycare. Walk through any UK town centre in the past twenty years and these are some of the names you might expect to see dotting the high street. Over recent years, however, you’re more likely to have read about them falling into administration, before either being sold off and restructured in cut-price deals or collapsing entirely.
Major retail failures have become so common, especially since COVID-19, that it is easy to see each one as another nail in the coffin of physical retail, part of an interminable shift from high streets and shopping arcades to omnichannel shopping and e-commerce. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll see this is far from the case.
Footfall and sales volumes in 2025 have demonstrated the resilience of brick and mortar retail, while M&A and real estate activity indicate that, far from dying, the physical retail industry is simply emerging from a period of poor management, unworkable debt and strategic misalignment.
Check out the full version of this insight, in which we explore the current retail real estate M&A trends and delve into:
- How COVID and economic upheaval wreaked havoc in the sector
- How out-of-town parks flourished while high streets and shopping centres floundered
- The tentative signs of recovery in 2025
- The shifting trajectory of e-commerce
View current retail acquisition opportunities here.
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