Sell-out boards ready to ditch British-listed firms on the cheap could do worse than look at electronics retailer Currys. Since Alex Baldock took the helm in 2018 it has faced multiple challenges.

He inherited a terrible legacy of uneconomic contracts from Carphone which had to run down.

The group lacked a meaningful online presence, customer service was weak and its Nordic chain was failing to pay its way.

Those issues are resolved. Since Labour came to office two years ago, it has faced surging employment and energy costs and the challenge of business rates as a company with physical stores in competition with Amazon and other online rivals.

Baldock attacked the problems against a background of Britain’s static standard of living. Two years ago, activist investor Elliott came a-calling, valuing the company at £756million.

Baldock and his board did that rare thing and told the predator to get lost.

The group’s market worth has more than doubled to £1.64billion, money accruing to existing shareholders, rather than marauders. 

Easyjet chairman Stephen Hester and Segro boss Andy Harrison – both under siege – please note. Anything leveraged buyers can do, you can with willpower and ambition do yourselves.

The current financial year began well for Currys after an 18 per cent lift in profit last year and a 6 per cent rise in sales.

The shares retreated on a warning about higher prices for electronic devices because of semiconductor shortages. But they are 36 per cent up over the past year.

The key to overcoming Currys’ historic problems has been creating a better and more satisfied workforce, and improved service levels.

Some 40pc of the enterprise is now online. 

It has captured an increasing number of small business customers and Scandinavia is now roaring away. 

That is why Nordic boss Fredrik Tonnesen is being drafted in next month as Baldock’s successor. Baldock is off to Boots.

Controlling investor Stefano Pessina would prefer a quick sale of the chemist and beauty chain to a trade buyer such as Canada’s Weston dynasty.

Organising a UK listing would take time. If there were an initial public offering, the opportunity for value creation by a dose of the Baldock medicine – every store must pay its way – would be a useful start.

Stalled payouts

When I met Nikhil Rathi at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) headquarters in May, he hoped the ‘Go’ button on a £9.1billion redress scheme for wrongful selling of car finance could be pressed this autumn.

The chief executive of Britain’s financial enforcer was determined that a prolonged process, casting a shadow over the banking system and depriving wronged motorists of payouts, could be avoided.

No one wants a repeat of the never-ending saga of payment protection insurance, where the cost of compensation reached £50billion and seeded an industry of parasitic claims managers.

A swift solution was too much to ask. Challenges brought by the car finance arms of Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, and France’s Credit Agricole halted the process. 

They have been joined by Consumer Voice, a private, Wrexham-based outfit, claiming to be the motorists’ friend.

The Upper Tribunal, the equivalent of the high court for financial cases, will not hear the appeal against the FCA scheme until later this year, or perhaps February.

Instead of a quickie settlement, the legal process could be stretched out for years.

Arguably, that might give lenders with big exposures, notably Close Brothers and Lloyds, more time to get their act together.

But, worryingly, it could expose them to a messy open-ended process. Early cash transfers to victims are thwarted.

Grand theft

Britain’s retailers and colleagues working in stores have been blighted by a shoplifting epidemic orchestrated on social media by organised gangs.

The mood of store owners and shop workers is unlikely to be improved by the release of the Hollywood movie I Love Boosters. 

It portrays shoplifters as Robin Hood-style heroes glamorised for heists on upmarket fashion stores.

It has been embraced by some critics as a metaphor for an unequal society.

Tell that to terrified shop workers!