M&S poaches John Lewis finance director Helen Weir November 17, 2014 Marks & Spencer has appointed John Lewis finance director Helen Weir as its own chief financial officer. In a statement posted this afternoon, the retailer said Weir has yet to confirm a start date. M&S' previous finance director, Alan Stewart, left suddenly in September to take up his new role at Tesco several months earlier [...]
Are you a Waitrose Wendy or a Tesco Tracey: How do the UK’s supermarket shoppers look? November 17, 2014 What does a Waitrose shopper look like, and how would you tell them apart from a Sainsbury's regular? There's actually not much to choose between them, according to YouGov, which has just released the best visualisation tool we've seen for a while. What YouGov says is particular (as opposed to generally true) about [...]
Thinking bigger: My Voucher Codes founder Mark Pearson talks Fern Britton and young tech entrepreneurs November 16, 2014 While we’re talking, it suddenly dawns on Mark Pearson that it’s his company’s eighth birthday. “It’s definitely around now,” he laughs, raising his empty plastic water cup in the air. In June of this year, Pearson sold My Voucher Codes, as part of his parent company Markco Media, to global mobile money technology provider [...]
Goodbye QE, hello uncertainty November 13, 2014 The Federal Reserve in the US has been looking to extract itself from its quantitative easing (QE) programme over the last 18 months, but feared if it did so too soon, it would cause turmoil in the financial markets. It has finally concluded, having made $4 trillion (£2.5 trillion) of bond purchases, that it is [...]
Analyst Views: What do you think of the strategy announced by Sainsbury’s? November 12, 2014 NICLA DI PALMA | BREWIN DOLPHIN What disappoints us is that management did not take a more aggressive stance with closing underperforming stores. Instead, Coupe will try to increase the non-food offer and possibly introduce some concessions. Management is loath to shrink, although we believe they could have taken the extra step. DARREN SHIRLEY | [...]
March of the discounters: Sainsbury’s share price rises as it promises £150m price cuts November 12, 2014 Newly-installed Sainsbury's chief executive Mike Coupe has taken the bull by the horns, promising a £150m "investment" in price cuts in order to compete with increasingly powerful discounters such as Aldi and Lidl. Investors were clearly impressed: shares rose four per cent as the market opened. The supermarket posted results showing its worst first-half performance [...]
Aldi to hire 35,000 new staff for expanding discount drive November 10, 2014 GERMAN discounter Aldi is to create 35,000 new jobs and employ up to 1,000 apprentices as it continues to expand its presence in the UK, the company announced yesterday. During a visit from the Prime Minister David Cameron to the chain’s headquarters in Atherstone, Warwickshire, Aldi reiterated its commitment to increasing the number of stores [...]
Countdown star Rachel Riley helps Edwina Dunn launch Stem career push November 10, 2014 Putting her Tesco Clubcard days well and truly behind her, Edwina Dunn, co-founder of Dunnhumby, launched Your Life – a campaign to advocate for the importance of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects for school children, in Google’s Holborn den yesterday. The tech giant’s trendy neon signage and cool “coffee-trike” doling out [...]
Tesco wins court battle against Sainsbury’s over Price Promise November 10, 2014 SAINSBURY’S claim that Tesco’s Price Promise campaign was unlawful and like comparing “apples with pears” has been thrown out by a High Court judge. Sainsbury’s complained that, when applied to Tesco’s own label products and fresh food, the price comparisons were misleading, unfair and unlawful. The promise involves a pledge to match Sainsbury’s, Asda and [...]
Soaring Tesco helps FTSE but Serco plummets – London Report November 10, 2014 BRITAIN’S top share index yesterday advanced to a five-week high as investors bought into the consumer staples and retail sectors, with ailing supermarket group Tesco leading the gainers. The stand-out mover of the day, however, was mid-cap services outsourcer Serco, whose shares fell 32.2 per cent to 215p after saying it planned a rights issue [...]