‘Shareholder value’ versus the regions: the closure of the Vaux Brewery in Sunderland

Abstract

‘Financialization’ and ‘shareholder value’ loom large in the closure of the Vaux Brewery in Sunderland. They are necessarily intertwined with the geographies of space and place. Geography inevitably enters into assessments of shareholder value by social agents. A geographical political economy approach argues that generalized pressures created by financialization and shareholder value are mediated and contested by specific and particular configurations of spatialized social relations, social agency, and socio-institutional contexts over time, across space, and in place. Geographical political economy frames the analysis of the Vaux Brewery closure in Sunderland. A more spatially sensitive, place aware, and locally and regionally rooted financial infrastructure may be necessary but not sufficient to underpin local and regional development.