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Retail sales rose by a better-than-expected 2.9% in May as increased footfall, better weather and deals saw shoppers return to high streets, according to officials.

It comes following a poor performance during the previous month as days of heavy rain dampened demand in much of the country.

Non-food shops reported strong monthly growth in May, with a rebound in clothes and furniture sales in particular, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on Friday.

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Footwear, sports equipment, games and toys outlets also experienced an improvement in their quantity of sales.

Economists polled by news agency Reuters had been expecting a rise of around 1.5%.

Meanwhile, the ONS also revised its retail sales figures for April.

It previously estimated that they fell by a worse-than-expected 2.3%, but now says the drop was 1.8%.

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Silvia Rindone, from financial services giant EY, said bank holidays in May had also “provided retailers with a much-needed sales boost”.

She added: “A summer packed with high-profile sporting events such as Uefa Euro 2024 and the Paris Olympics, coupled with better weather and the possibility of political changes, could well be the catalyst for a resurgence in consumer confidence.

“While these upcoming events are beyond retailers’ control, they present a golden opportunity to drive sales.”

‘Recessionary behaviours easing’

The ONS reported that non-food outlets, including department stores and homeware shops, saw sales volumes increase by 3.5% in May – the largest monthly rise in three years.

“These retailers reported improved footfall, better weather, and the impact of promotions,” officials said.

Non-store retailers – who mostly sell products online – also reported a 5.9% month-on-month rise in sales.

Economist Andrew Wishart, from research firm Capital Economics, said it suggested that lower inflation was starting to encourage shoppers to open their wallets more.

He said: “Overall, the retail sales data for May showed tentative signs that strengthening real income growth now inflation is back at target is feeding through to stronger spending.

“As long as inflation continues to behave, this might not prevent [an interest] rate cut in August, although a strengthening in activity could mean the pace of rate cuts thereafter is gradual.”

Oliver Vernon-Harcourt, head of retail at Deloitte, also said the figures suggested that “recessionary behaviours are easing”, with more consumers “releasing their purse strings and spending on discretionary items such as clothing and furniture”.

Kris Hamer, director of insight at the British Retail Consortium, added: “Retailers hope that the recent start of Euro 2024 should further improve spending in snacks, alcohol, and TVs for June’s figures – and if England can win their final game and move forward to Round of 16, it might give consumer confidence the boost it needs.”

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O2 arena lease snapped up by pensions giant Rothesay

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O2 arena lease snapped up by pensions giant Rothesay

The long-term lease to the O2, London’s best-known live entertainment venue, has been sold to Britain’s biggest pensions insurance specialist.

Sky News understands a deal was signed last week for Rothesay, the title sponsor of England’s home Test cricket matches, to acquire the landmark’s 999-year lease for about £90m.

The agreement, which is likely to be announced within days, comes more than two months after Sky News reported that Rothesay was the frontrunner to clinch a deal.

Rothesay has become one of Britain’s most successful specialist insurers, having been established in 2007.

It now protects the pensions of more than one million people in Britain and makes more than £300m in pension payouts every month.

The auction of the O2 lease kicked off several months ago, when Cambridge University’s wealthiest college, Trinity, instructed advisers to launch a sale process.

Trinity College, which ranks among Britain’s biggest landowners, acquired the site in 2009 for a reported £24m.

The O2, which shrugged off its ‘white elephant’ status in the aftermath of its disastrous debut as the Millennium Dome in 2000, has since become one of the world’s leading entertainment venues.

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Operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it has played host to a wide array of music, theatrical, and sporting events over nearly a quarter of a century.

Trinity College, which was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, bought the O2 lease from Lend Lease and Quintain, the property companies that had taken control of the Millennium Dome site in 2002 for nothing.

In a joint statement issued in response to an enquiry from Sky News, Rothesay and Trinity College Cambridge said they were “pleased to confirm that Rothesay will be the long-term owner of The O2 arena, following a competitive auction process for the lease of this London landmark”.

A spokesperson for Rothesay said separately: “Prestigious and high-quality property assets like the O2 form an important part of Rothesay’s investment strategy, providing the predictable and dependable returns which create real security for the one million-plus pensions we protect.”

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Advertising mogul Sorrell approached about S4 Capital deal

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Advertising mogul Sorrell approached about S4 Capital deal

Sir Martin Sorrell, the advertising mogul, has received a number of merger approaches for S4 Capital, the London-listed marketing services group he founded seven years ago.

Sky News can reveal that Sir Martin has been contacted in recent weeks by potential suitors including One Equity Partners, a US-based private equity firm which focuses on acquiring companies in the healthcare, industrials, and technology sectors.

This weekend, analysts suggested that One Equity would seek to combine S4 Capital with MSQ, a creative and technology agency group it bought in 2023.

Further details of the possible tie-up were unclear on Saturday, including whether a formal proposal had been made or whether S4 Capital might remain listed on the London Stock Exchange if a deal were to be completed.

S4 Capital is also understood to have attracted recent interest from other parties, the identities of which could not be immediately established.

In March 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sir Martin had rebuffed several offers from Stagwell, an advertising group led by Mark Penn, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton.

New Mountain Capital, another American private equity firm, was also said at the time to have held talks about buying parts or all of S4 Capital.

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News of One Equity’s approach puts the venture founded by one of Britain’s most prominent business figures firmly in play after a torrid period in which it has been buffeted by macroeconomic headwinds and a number of accounting issues.

Sir Martin founded S4 Capital in 2018, months after his unexpected and acrimonious departure from WPP, the group he transformed from a manufacturer of wire baskets into the world’s largest provider of marketing services.

The businessman, who has voting control at S4 Capital, used his deep network of institutional relationships to raise money for an acquisition spree at S4, which included technology-focused agencies such as MediaMonks and MightyHive.

S4’s clients now include Alphabet, Amazon, General Motors, Meta, T-Mobile, and Walmart.

Sir Martin’s decision to target acquisitions in the digital content and programmatic media arenas reflected the priorities of what he described as a marketing services group for a new era.

At WPP, he was the architect of a now-widely replicated strategy to assemble hundreds of agency brands under one holding company.

By the time he stepped down, WPP was the owner of creative agency networks such as JWT and Ogilvy, while its media-buying muscle was channelled through the global subsidiary GroupM.

The latest approaches for S4 Capital come during a period of profound change in the global marketing services industry, as artificial intelligence dismantles practices and creative processes that had evolved over decades.

Sir Martin has spurned few opportunities to criticise his successor at WPP, Mark Read, as well as the wider advertising industry, in the seven years since he established S4 Capital.

Last month, WPP announced that Mr Read would be replaced by Cindy Rose, a senior Microsoft executive who has sat on the company’s board as a non-executive director since 2019.

“Cindy has supported the digital transformation of large enterprises around the world – including embracing AI to create new customer experiences, business models and revenue streams,” the WPP chairman, Philip Jansen, said.

“Her expertise in this landscape will be hugely valuable to WPP as the industry navigates fundamental changes and macroeconomic uncertainty.”

WPP has also forfeited its status as the world’s largest marketing services empire to Publicis, and will be shunted even further behind the sector’s biggest players once Omnicom Group’s $13.25bn (£9.85bn) takeover of Interpublic Group is completed.

At the time of Sir Martin’s exit from WPP in April 2018, the company had a market capitalisation of more than £16bn.

On Friday, its market value at its closing share price of 367.5p was just £4.23bn.

Last month, the advertising industry news outlet Campaign reported that WPP had held tentative discussions with the consulting firm Accenture about a potential combination or partnership, underscoring the pressure on legacy marketing services groups.

This weekend, it remained unclear how likely it was that Sir Martin would consummate a deal to combine S4 Capital with another industry player such as One Equity-owned MSQ.

Shares in S4 Capital closed on Friday at 21.2p, giving the company a market capitalisation of £140m.

The stock has fallen by nearly 60% during the last 12 months, and is more than 90% lower than its peak in 2022.

At one point, Sir Martin’s stake in S4 Capital was valued at close to £500m.

A spokeswoman for S4 declined to comment, while a spokesman for One Equity Partners said by email: “OEP is not commenting on this matter.”

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Visma owners close to picking banks for £16bn London float

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Visma owners close to picking banks for £16bn London float

The owners of Visma, one of Europe’s biggest software companies, are close to hiring bankers for a £16bn flotation that would rank among the London market’s biggest for years.

Sky News understands that Visma’s board and shareholders have convened a beauty parade of investment banks in the last fortnight ahead of an initial public offering (IPO) likely to take place in 2026.

Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are understood to be among those in contention for the top roles on the deal, City insiders said on Friday.

Several banks are expected to be appointed as global coordinators on the IPO as soon as this month.

Visma is a Norwegian company which supplies accounting, payroll, HR and other business software to well over one million small business customers.

It has grown at a rapid rate in recent years, both organically and through scores of acquisitions, and has seen its profitability and valuation rise substantially during that period.

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The business is now valued at about €19bn (£16.4bn) and is partly owned by a number of sovereign wealth funds and other private equity firms.

The majority of the company is owned by Hg, the London-based private equity firm which has backed a string of spectacularly successful companies in the software industry.

Visma’s owners’ decision to pick the UK ahead of competition from Amsterdam represents a welcome boost to the City amid ongoing questions about the attractiveness of the London stock market to international companies.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, used last month’s speech at Mansion House to launch a taskforce aimed at generating additional IPO activity in the UK.

Spokespeople claiming to represent Visma at Kekst, a communications firm, did not respond to a series of enquiries about the IPO appointments.

Hg also failed to respond to a request for comment.

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