The Co-operative commits £75m to slashing prices in supermarket battle March 2, 2016 The Co-operative Group is ploughing a further £75m into cutting prices of every day products in its latest bid to get ahead in the supermarket price war. The mutual, which has over 2,800 food stores across the UK, said it will slash the cost of over 200 of its own-brand British sourced meat and poultry products, with [...]
Darty share price soars as Christo Wiese’s Steinhoff International wades in with £662m offer March 2, 2016 Shares in Darty have soared by nearly 10 per cent this morning after South African retail conglomerate Steinhoff International made a £662m offer for the UK-listed electrical chain – a move that could scupper its already agreed sale to French rival Fnac. Darty said it has received a cash offer of 125 pence per share from the [...]
Sainsbury’s wins complaint against Tesco’s price matching guarantee advert, after watchdog ASA bans it for being misleading March 2, 2016 Tesco's price-matching "brand guarantee" advert has been banned for being "misleading" after a regulator upheld a complaint made by rival supermarket Sainsbury's today. The advert, which appeared in national press in October last year as part of chief executive Dave Lewis' update from its earlier price promise, said consumers would "never pay more for your branded shop". [...]
Shop prices decline in February for 34th consecutive month as supermarket price wars gather pace March 2, 2016 Shop prices fell for the 34th month in a row in February, to the benefit of consumers, as food returned to deflationary territory and competition on the high street remained fierce. Prices fell by two per cent in the year to February, which was an acceleration on the 1.8 per cent decline reported in January and [...]
Morrisons may not be the most obvious partner for Amazon, but there is method behind the marriage – and it could mean trouble for Asda, Tesco and Ocado March 1, 2016 Only one pound out of every £10 that Britons spend on groceries drops into Morrisons’ tills. Not a bad ratio, you might think, but like its bigger rivals (over £6 in every £10 is spent in Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Asda), Morrisons has been struggling with a declining market share. The Bradford-headquartered supermarket is not the [...]
UK household spending growth slows for fourth month in a row in January, Asda income tracker shows March 1, 2016 UK households enjoyed a double digit rise in their weekly spending power in January, despite growth slowing for the fourth month in a row. Asda’s latest income tracker released today shows that consumers were £12 – or 6.7 per cent – better off in January compared with the same time last year, taking their average [...]
What the Morrisons-Amazon tie up is doing to Tesco, Ocado and Sainsbury’s share prices February 29, 2016 Morrisons might be having a whale of a day after revealing its tie-up with Amazon this morning – but virtually the rest of the retail sector has spent the day so far in the red. Morrisons' share price soared on the news that it would be offering hundreds of products to Amazon's UK customers via [...]
One million retail jobs at risk from rising wages and tax costs, warns British Retail Consortium February 29, 2016 One million retail jobs could disappear in the next decade as high street shops across the country struggle to cope with drastic changes in shopping habits and rising costs. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned that government policies including the new national living wage, the apprenticeship levy and rising business rates will add as much as £14bn [...]
EU referendum: Asda, HSBC, Vodafone and nearly 200 sign letter saying Brexit would threaten jobs – but Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s are not on the list February 23, 2016 The bosses of HSBC, BT, Vodafone and Asda are among those to have put their name to an open letter backing the remain camp and Prime Minister David Cameron's reforms in Europe. More than a third of the UK's biggest companies were represented in the letter, which was published in The Times this morning, saying they represented [...]
London startup Qubit lands $40m series C round from Goldman Sachs, Sapphire Ventures, Accel and Saleforce Ventures February 22, 2016 Goldman Sachs is among the investors to plough $40m (£28.4m) into London startup Qubit in the latest of several deals injecting venture capital cash into the UK. The data analytics startup founded in the capital in 2010 landed the cash from Goldman's merchant banking division along with Sapphire Ventures and previous investors Accel and Salesforce Ventures. It brings its [...]