Some of the biggest high street retailers are in jeopardy as Jon Asgeir Johannesson, owner of Baugur's main source of funding collapses, the bank everyone's talking about – Glitnir. The Icelandic billionaire has large shares in many high street stores both side of the Atlantic such as French Connection, Woolworths and Debenhams. Since the beginning of this year Johannesson has lost £100 million in these investments alone!

He also owns high street pinnacles House of Fraser, Oasis, Whistles, All Saints and the Iceland Supermarket chain among others. There are fears that many of these stores will be auctioned off, this could mean thousands of jobs lost or saved. MFI is due to close almost 100 stores which will entail hundreds of job axed.

Earlier this year Baugur was all lined up to takeover Moss Bros for a tiny sum (for a billionaire) of just £40million. This deal fell through as the bank providing the funding for this take over was Glitnir. This is a dire change of events for Baugur who 20 years ago owned just one Icelandic supermarket but in 2001 purchased 20% of the Arcadia Group which includes Topshop and Dorothy Perkins. When he sold this share later he scraped in £100million profit. He's also had similar dealings with Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's. Johannesson is obviously a clever guy with good luck but it looks like his luck is running out as the economic climate spirals out of control.

What does this mean for us? As a designer you are likely to find it hard to have your collection stocked by these brands whose funding may be tight OR if these high street stores our bought out there my be a sudden surge of funding as the shop is completely re-branded.  For those out on the high street, there's either going to be a massive sale (wooh!) or you should start your Christmas shopping now because there's a chance the shops won't be open much longer.

Iceland lovers? Stock up on half price baked beans because we'll be living on them soon.

Words By Jemima Compton