What do retailers fear even more than the R number? The rent

On the last ‘quarter day’, in March, many stores didn’t pay their landlords. This week, things could be even worse

The reopening of thousands of stores, combined with May’s 12% rebound in sales, has provided some respite for Britain’s’s battered retailers, but the high street crisis is far from over – not least because a monster £2.5bn quarterly rent bill falls due this week.

Shop landlords traditionally collect rent in four equal chunks spread throughout the year, and Midsummer Day on Wednesday is the next so-called “quarter day”. The last one, in March, was a red-letter day for all the wrong reasons, with Primark and JD Sports among the big names that didn’t pay their rent as the country went into lockdown.

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