I am not advocating that you start the day with a cold shower, but, as my complete ignorance about gardening evaporates slowly, I have become aware that a sustained dose of cold weather does your garden some good.

Remember the old days when one could rely on at least a few days of proper snow in Southeast England and waking up to see plants newly crystalline with their winter coat of frost? It benefited the garden, bringing bug population levels to heel.

These days, as our glaciers disappear, you might have noticed that slugs party throughout the year and flies are rampant. Not good, not good and not good.

’Tis the same in commercial life. A prolonged warm business climate has allowed all manner of enterprises to flourish. Managements have popped up, claiming they have created an innovative business model. These models have, apparently, flown well with a commercial tailwind. A good number of investors have lapped it up. It does not take a genius to spot recent examples in both the financial and retail sectors.

The difference between global weather and the business climate is that UK businesses are now facing a sharp frost; moreover, one that might last several months. Innovative new business models are being found to be far from flawless. Like these business models in a new headwind, demand for snake oil has plummeted.

Economists call this “reversion to the mean”. We are not quite in an era when the plodder is hero, but those who have plotted a more risk-averse route are being rewarded – in relative terms at least.

Maybe it was not such a good idea to leverage your balance sheet as far as those predators suggested. Maybe those retailers that can still count themselves their own landlords have reason to feel more cheery.

It is not all bad news. Of course, the silver lining to this cold cloud is that property deals are beginning to acknowledge the new economic reality.

This phase in the cycle is the most fertile stage to accelerate the growth of those (few) promising new formats, whose growth has hitherto been choked by a shortage of realistic leasehold opportunities.

An ostensibly gilt-edged new regional centre, such as White City, still has some units to fill, apparently. I am sure that the nascent winners of three years hence will have proven to have used this year’s woes as a springboard to faster growth.

And, as with bugs in springs of old, those that survive the winter are the strongest and end up sharing the garden with fewer competitors.

Paul Smiddy, head of retail research, HSBC

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