It will be harder to pick up a last-minute light bulb. You might have to rely on Amazon Prime for a quick delivery of new tea towels. And your local shopping centre will look even more dismally empty than it already does.
There will, in fairness, be some disadvantages to the hardware chain Wilko disappearing. And yet there is no point in pretending that it is any great loss. In reality, it was one of many ‘zombie’ companies, kept alive by artificially low interest rates. Now that capital costs money again, many more will go bust.
Wilko announced today that it was going into administration, and that its 400 stores are now likely to close, with the potential loss of 12,000 jobs. The chain had been looking for a savior for months. It is of course, terrible news for the staff, if rather less for the customers, who were hardly thronging to buy anything there.
We are just starting to see the impact of a return to a ‘normal’ rate of interest on the economy
The important point, however, is that Wilko is just one of the first victims of the return to normal interest rates.
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