Restaurant Group says on track for 2012 November 10, 2011 THE RESTAURANT group said it continued to make good progress, posting a 6.5 per cent rise in sales in the 44 weeks to November, despite pressure from inflationary costs and weak consumer spending. The owner of Frankie & Benny’s and Chiquito restaurant chains said November trading had started well and remains on track to meet [...]
STARBUCKS FRESHENS UP EXPANSION PLANS November 10, 2011 STARBUCKS will launch a chain of juice bars starting next year in a move which marks its biggest-ever expansion beyond coffee. In a statement yesterday, chief executive Howard Schultz announced the group’s acquisition of juice company Evolution Fresh for $30m (£19m) in cash. The first juice bars are set to open in the US in [...]
Wm Morrison warns Xmas will be tough November 10, 2011 WM MORRISON chief executive Dalton Philips warned of “a very tough Christmas” ahead, with consumer sentiment at its lowest in a generation, as the group posted a rise in its underlying sales. Philips said “people were being very frugal” but he expected this to play to Morrison’s strengths, as it continues to outperform it rivals [...]
Halfords suffers fall in profits November 10, 2011 HALFORDS, the seller of car parts and leisure products, saw pre-tax profits fall by 20 per cent in the first half of the year as hard-up motorists cut back on the maintenance of their vehicles to save cash in tough times. Profit at the group, which owns 466 Halfords stores and 246 Autocentres in the [...]
WHSmith sales decline but confident for growth November 10, 2011 WHSMITH said it remained confident of delivering growth despite reporting worsening sales across its high street stores. The books and stationary retailers said total sales in the first 10 weeks of the year were down three per cent while like-for-like sales fell six per cent compared to last year. This was driven by a six [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: HOW HAS MORRISONS FARED COMPARED TO ITS RIVALS? November 10, 2011 CLIVE BLACK | SHORE CAPITAL Morrison’s provides the market with the first official indication of supermarket trading momentum since Tesco UK introduced its ‘Big Price Drop’. Total sales from the Bradford based group…seem to have weathered the price cutting storm reasonably well with ex-fuel, ex-VAT sales up by 4.6 per cent. DAVE MCCARTHY | EVOLUTION [...]
Westfield eyes third London shopping mall November 10, 2011 AUSTRALIAN developer Westfield is in exclusive talks to turn a south London shopping centre into a third mega-mall in the city. The developer of the blue-chip Stratford City mall in east London and the Westfield London mall in Shepherd’s Bush said it was in talks with UK charity Whitgift Foundation to explore the possible redevelopment [...]
Walkie Talkie to tower ahead November 10, 2011 LAND Securities’ Walkie Talkie will be the first of the City’s skyscrapers to be completed in 2014, taking advantage of a squeeze in new office space to attract prospective tenants, chief executive Francis Salway said yesterday. The developer is pressing ahead with the 37-storey tower on Fenchurch Street in a joint venture with the Canary [...]
Culpable execs must be sued, Olympus is told November 10, 2011 A JAPANESE shareholder in Japan’s Olympus has asked the camera-to-medical-equipment maker to sue 21 former and current executives if it finds they violated their duties in connection with acquisition deals at the centre of a governance scandal. In a letter the shareholder asked the company’s auditors to seek repayment of 139.42bn yen (£1.13bn) plus interest [...]
Lloyds loses top director to rival RBS November 10, 2011 ON THE HEELS of António Horta-Osório’s sudden hiatus from Lloyds, another top executive has announced her departure from the company. After 16 years at the bank, Jennifer Mathias, finance director and head of risk and compliance at Lloyds corporate bank, has announced a switch to Coutts, an arm of RBS. Mathias, who started with Lloyds following [...]
