Wednesday newspaper round-up: Selfridges, property sales, Aviva
Personal after-hours shopping trips, online beauty appointments and entertainment for those queuing outside will form part of Selfridges’ coronavirus-era shopping offer when the retailer reopens on 15 June. The luxury department store group, which operates four shops in the UK, including its London flagship on Oxford Street, will not be able to reopen services such as beauty makeovers, hairdressing or its cafes and cinema because of Covid-19 restrictions. It is hoping a mix of virtual experiences and live entertainments – such as DJs – will help shoppers feel no less pampered. – Guardian
Property sales in most of England have swiftly rebounded to the same levels they were just before the lockdown, although London lags behind the rest of the country and markets in Scotland and Wales remain closed, according to website Zoopla. Pent-up demand has also meant firmer prices, said Zoopla, with the average asking price of sales agreed in the last week 6% higher than the same week in June last year. Its figures are in sharp contrast with those from Nationwide, which last week said house prices across the UK were falling at the fastest rate since the financial crisis. – Guardian
One of Britain's most powerful investors has hit out at HSBC and Standard Chartered for backing an authoritarian crackdown in Hong Kong. In a major intervention, Aviva Investors said it was deeply concerned that the London-listed banks have thrown their weight behind China's Communist regime amid the push for a new law criminalising anti-government movements in the former British colony. – Telegraph
France is pumping €15bn (£13.4bn) into its aerospace industry to safeguard 100,000 aviation jobs at risk from the collapse in air travel caused by coronavirus, ramping up pressure on the Government to launch a similar bailout. Announcing the support package Bruno Le Maire, finance minister, said France was “declaring a state of emergency to save our aeronautics industry”. – Telegraph
Analysts at Peel Hunt have spent the past few weeks totting up the amount by which British listed companies have been rethinking their capital expenditure plans. They reckon that £23 billion has been slashed from capex budgets for this year. Charles Hall, head of research at the broker, says that the results are sobering and raise serious questions about the ability of the economy to bounce back any time soon. Capital spending accounts for almost a tenth of UK GDP. – The Times