THE £19.1m purchase of the row of shops on Lord Street that the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor has bought from Land Securities is slightly puzzling.

It might be nothing more than a tidying up exercise for both parties. For Land Securities, which also owns St John’s and Clayton Square shopping centres, it might be the equivalent of selling a bit of junk at the back of the garage. It’s hardly a crucial part of their portfolio, and they may have said to themselves “if they want it, they can have it. It’s not much use to us”.

For Grosvenor, it makes sense, because the buildings are immediately next to its city centre shopping estate. The Lord Street shops back onto Liverpool One. So it just might be helpful from the perspective of some arcane property law issue, or maybe it’s easier to manage refuse collection of road sweeping with the shops incorporated into the Liverpool One estate.

I would, however, prefer to think that there was some grander strategy in the making.

Wouldn’t it be nice, for example, if the real reason for the purchase was that another big department store name has seen the trade being done at Liverpool One and has decided it wants a piece of the action. Grosvenor could easily knock the row of shops down and build a new store facing onto Lord Street, just like Debenhams does a hundred yards down the road.

Or maybe it’s just the yields are good. At 6.4%, it’s certainly a steady return.

CAN Ethel Austin’s new owner make a go of the chain when others have failed in the past?

You have to remember that it isn’t just previous owner Elaine McPherson who has struggled to turn the famous Liverpool retail name into a viable proposition. Before her, there was a management team led by Phil Hoskinson. He and a team of fellow managers had big ambitions to double the number of stores, including opening Ethel Austin shops in parts of the country where the group had no previous profile.

As the adjacent feature demonstrates, new owner Sue Townsend certainly has a plan.

Maybe the failure of Ethel Austin and its erstwhile alternative incarnation of Life & Style resulted from the failure to pay attention to some of the important details of retailing, as Ms Townsend suggests.

Alternatively, though, the problem could be down to the highly competitive nature of the discount segment of the retail market.

When you look at the progress of Primark and the fact that much of what you can buy in Ethel’s can these days be found in Tesco, it is easy to see why the job of keeping your niche is all the more difficult.

Or, as the recent British Retail Consortium’s survey suggests, it’s just tough out there at the moment and you have to be brave indeed to venture forth in current conditions.

IF YOU had no particular affinity to Queens Park Rangers, would you buy the London football club, rather than Everton? Indeed, if you were a Middle Eastern sheikh, would you buy Manchester City without at least taking a look at Everton, if it were on the market?

Probably not.

So why can’t Bill Kenwright find a buyer?

Price could well be a sticking point. Everton must be Mr Kenwright’s principal asset, so he can’t let go of it without obtaining good proceeds for it. On the other hand, laden with debts, the club is not worth very much to others. If so, we could be stuck in this impasse for many years to come.