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As we come into 2021’s home straight, few moments can match the drama and rivalry that played out yesterday in Abu Dhabi as the Formula One season drew to a close. A nail-biting final lap decided the 2021 championship after the two key protagonists, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, started the race on equal points. Even those not of a petrolhead persuasion would be hard pushed not to have enjoyed the spectacle. The lesson of the day was to never give up. In the highly competitive sports arena, we’ve seen countless times how victory can be snatched from the jaws of defeat. Whilst investment is a different game altogether, similarities can be drawn between our industry and theirs.

The buoyant markets of October continued through most of November, taking several equity indices to new all-time highs, until news of the new Covid variant, Omicron, at the end of the month reverberated globally and sent equity markets into their sharpest one-day falls of 2021, pushing all major markets into negative territory for the month.

The last decade or so has seen traditional retail undergo a structural change. Rapid growth of e-commerce, everchanging consumer habits and increasing competition have all been cited as culprits responsible for the ‘death of the high street’, but the real culprit is bad management.

The onslaught of the pandemic last year witnessed the highest number of store closures in the UK since the global financial crisis, taking down household names such as Debenhams and Topshop’s parent company Arcadia Group in its wake. The pandemic isn’t wholly to blame for the failure of these businesses though, it was more of an accelerant, bringing forward the eventual demise of these badly run businesses.