Primark was ABF’s jewel in the crown, now it has become its Achilles’ heel

While most high street chains have been able to partially offset store closures with digital sales, Primark has no such fall-back plan

That’s the thing about fast fashion – sales of £3 diamante earrings and £12 swimsuits might be popular with the trendy kids but, when you don’t sell online, they’re also highly vulnerable to Government-imposed lockdowns.

There’s much to admire about Primark and the sister businesses that make up Associated British Foods. If it wasn’t for the Weston family’s control, one of the UK’s few remaining conglomerates would surely have been besieged by an activist break-up campaign long ago.

Wall Street raiders love to pick apart strange bedfellows and £15bn ABF’s combination of knockdown high street clothing, sugar manufacturing, assorted grocery brands, and animal feed, is unquestionably unconventional.

Yet by remaining intact, the group has shown it is capable of weathering fierce economic storms better than many of its FTSE 100 brethren. The benefits of diversification were on display again during the first half of the year with all five divisions – grocery, sugar, ingredients, agriculture and retail – reporting higher or flat profits during six months to the end of February.

Still, that was a parallel universe. The coronavirus pandemic is tearing holes in business models everywhere. Remove retail from the equation and the rest of ABF is holding up pretty well with the outlook unchanged at four divisions, no mean feat in today’s world.