High street faces chilly week ahead as disappointing festive trading updates expected January 6, 2019 High street retailers are expected to be further under the cosh by the end of the week, with a flurry of quarterly trading updates due in the coming days. Troubled department store Marks and Spencer is one of several set to reveal yet another fall in sales over the festive period, according to analysts at [...]
High street remains in hedge funds’ sights as bets against the consumer sector rise in final quarter January 6, 2019 Hedge funds continued to turn the screws on high street retailers, restaurants and makers of consumer goods at the end of last year, with short positions in the sector increasing 20 per cent. The rise in bets against the industry came in the final three months of the year, and means nearly one-third of total [...]
Domino’s Pizza denies shareholder complaints over board shake up plans January 6, 2019 Domino’s Pizza has denied rumours of shareholder unrest over changes to the company's board positions. The pizza giant has not been contacted by shareholders demanding changes to its board, City A.M. understands, despite reports a group had told chairman Stephen Hemsley to hire a new heavyweight senior independent director. A group of top 20 shareholders were [...]
Adventure firm Zip World secures Lloyds investment to expand across UK January 6, 2019 Adventure company Zip World has secured investment from the private equity arm of Lloyds valuing the zip wire pioneer at £45m. The funding from LDC will help the company, which runs adventure experiences in Wales including the world’s fastest zip wire, expand across the UK and beyond, it said. Founded five year ago, Zip World [...]
Retail administrations rise for the second consecutive year January 5, 2019 The number of retail administrations has risen for the second year in a row after 125 retailers collapsed in 2018. Administrations rose six per cent last year from 118 in 2017, and 26 of the retailers that collapsed were large brands, compared to 17 the year before. There was a 53 per cent increase in [...]
Chipotle to open second restaurant in the City of London January 5, 2019 US fast food chain Chipotle is opening its second City of London branch next week. The restaurant in King William Street, near Monument station, will begin serving on Monday. The chain, which serves Mexican style food, already has a branch in the Square Mile at London Wall, as well as seven others in London including locations [...]
Westfield Stratford and Westfield London boost Christmas shopping footfall January 4, 2019 Westfield London and Stratford City saw record festive footfall this year, helping to dispel fears of retail gloom over the Christmas period. Christmas footfall was up 11 per cent year-on-year with 15.6m visitors visiting the centres from the start of November, the owner of the two shopping centres, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, announced today, while Boxing Day shoppers hit 350,000 [...]
Pre-booking investment drives Stonegate Pubs’ festive sales success January 4, 2019 Stonegate Pub Company saw a 17.8 per cent surge in pre-bookings this Christmas following “significant” investment in its facilities as it reported strong sales over the festive period. The pub chain, which has 735 venues across the country, revealed that it had invested in a central call centre hub to take bookings and that total [...]
Shop price inflation grows in December despite Christmas discounting January 4, 2019 Shop price inflation rose in December as festive discounting failed to keep prices down for stretched consumers. Overall inflation rose to 0.3 per cent last month, up from 0.1 per cent in November and the highest rate of inflation since April 2013. It is only the fourth month of inflation in the last five years, according [...]
Beyonce and Jay-Z music video helps Louvre break visitor numbers world record in 2018 January 3, 2019 The Louvre Museum in Paris has broken the existing ticket office world record, after visitor numbers in 2018 were boosted by a music video filmed there which featured Beyonce Knowles and her husband Jay-Z. More than 10m people visited the Louvre’s galleries of fine art and antiquities last year, topping the previous record of 9.7m [...]