Monday newspaper round-up: Black Friday, Gail's, Evri, Amazon

(Sharecast News) - Shoppers held back from visiting high streets over Black Friday, data shows, amid fears weak consumer spending will put the brakes on economic growth in 2026. Visitors to all UK shopping destinations were down 2% on Friday and 7.2% compared with the equivalent days last year, according to the monitoring company MRI Software, with locations near central London offices among the few to experience a lift in visits. - Guardian The upmarket bakery chain Gail's is planning 40 more outlets after sales rose by a fifth last year as it opened 36 new bakeries and sales to supermarkets increased. The cafe and retailer, which currently has 185 sites, said sales rose to £278m in the year to the end of February but that pre-tax losses widened to £7.8m, from £7.4m a year before, as costs rose and it spent millions on opening new outlets, according to accounts filed at Companies House. - Guardian

Britain's worst parcel delivery company paid out a £108m dividend last year, just months after it was bought by US private equity giant Apollo. Evri, which was named the UK's worst courier for the third year running by the regulator Ofcom last month, paid the money into its parent company in the year to March. - Telegraph

Amazon is scaling back its British drone delivery plans after the tech giant had its wings clipped by local planning officers. The internet retailer has cut back the frequency of planned drone flights by more than half as it waits for approval to launch Britain's first drone deliveries next month. - Telegraph

The High Court is due to hear claims that Lloyds Banking Group should pay £280 million for alleged failings in relation to a £1.2 billion scam. Lloyds and Bank of Scotland are accused of breaching banking mandates and duties of care by processing fraudulent payment instructions related to Arena, a television equipment business at the centre of what is purported to be Britain's "largest ever" asset-based lending fraud. - The Times

Google's move into its London "landscraper" has been pushed back until next year, The Times understands. Repeated delays to the works mean that teams will not start taking residence in the US tech company's massive £1 billion European headquarters, known as Platform G, until some point in 2026. Google did not respond to requests for comment. - The Times