Financialization, securitization and the decline of pubs in Britain[The financialization of home and the mortgage market crisis]

Pubs in Britain are closing at a rapid rate. While changing regulatory, demographic and consumer trends have weakened the viability of pubs businesses in recent years, less is known about the role of Pub Companies, or ‘pubcos’, in contributing to the decline of the sector. Reflecting the core elements of financialization, pubcos acquire assets through securitization, prioritize shareholder value and operate under short-term financial targets and metrics. Adopting an institutionally sensitive geographical political economy approach, this article analyzes the ways in which pubcos, through financialization and securitization, have transformed the ownership and geographies of pubs in Britain. Foregrounding the firm as the unit of analysis, it emphasizes the importance of firm agency in creating more granular understandings of the geographical causes and implications of securitization. Analyzing the interrelationships between actors involved in the securitization process, particularly tensions between shareholders and bondholders, this article makes a novel contribution around the variegated, contradictory and conflicted nature of firm-level financialization.