One month ago, we presented a stunning fact from Credit Suisse: barely a quarter into 2017, [annualized] year-to-date retail store closings have already surpassed those of 2008.
According to the Swiss bank’s calculations, on a unit basis, approximately 2,880 store closings were announced YTD, more than twice as many closings as the 1,153 announced during the same period last year. Historically, roughly 60% of store closure announcements occur in the first five months of the year. By extrapolating the year-to-date announcements, CS estimates that there could be more than 8,640 store closings this year, which will be higher than the historical 2008 peak of approximately 6,200 store closings, which suggests that for brick-and-mortar stores stores the current transition period is far worse than the depth of the credit crisis depression.
Another striking fact: on a square footage basis, approximately 49 million square feet of retail space has closed YTD. Should this pace persist by the end of the year, total square footage reductions could reach 147M square feet – or just over 5 square miles – another all time high, and surpassing the historical peak of 115M in 2001.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on May 20, 2017.
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