Asda buys UK Netto stores May 27, 2010 ASDA has bought the Netto supermaket chain in the UK for £778m. Netto has 193 stores, which will be converted to small Asda stores by next Summer, if regulators give the go-ahead. Asda plans to employ up to twice as many staff in each of the stores it has acquired. It sees the move as [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 20, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK PUBLISHERS FEAR THREAT OF DIGITAL PIRACY Publishers have warned that the fight against illegal copying of digital books could impose a huge cost on the industry, raising fears of a new wave of online piracy. Gail Rebuck, chairman and chief executive of The Random House Group, part of Bertelsmann, said illegal copying [...]
Clothes push retail sales up 0.3pc in April May 20, 2010 IMPROVING clothing and department store sales offset flat food sales to push British retail revenues slightly higher than expected in April, according to the Office for National Statistics. Including petrol and diesel, high street sales rose 0.3 per cent last month, above analysts’ forecasts of 0.2 per cent and up 1.8 per cent year-on-year. The [...]
Wal-Mart price cuts pay off May 18, 2010 WAL-MART’S quarterly results yesterday beat Wall Street expectations as a curb on costs helped the world’s largest retailer overcome weaker US same-store sales. The costs cuts on everything from labour to transportation helped the company fund “rollbacks” on prices for thousands of items in recent weeks, as it tries to hold onto customers pressured by [...]
Clarke to become chief executive at Asda while Bond steps up to chairman May 11, 2010 CHIEF operating officer of Asda, Andy Clarke, has been appointed to the role of chief executive and president of the US-owned supermarket. His promotion follows last month’s announcement by Andy Bond that he would step up to become part-time chairman at the retailer. Clarke joined Asda in 1992 but left in 2001 for roles at [...]
Andy Clarke set to land Asda chief executive role May 6, 2010 ASDA is tipped to promote its chief operating officer, Andy Clarke, to the top job next week following chief executive Andy Bond’s decision to step aside. Clarke is understood to have been selected ahead of several internal candidates including Darren Blackhurst, Asda’s punchy trading director. Blackhurst has now resigned after five years at the Wal-Mart [...]
Asda fights poor sales with best price guarantee April 28, 2010 ASDA yesterday unveiled a money-back price guarantee after poor sales growth. The chain is offering to refund shoppers who find that a basket of comparable goods would have been cheaper at Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury’s. Asda increased its sales by only 2.5 per cent in the 12 weeks to 28 April, compared with rises of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 27, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES MARKET SHARE SLIP FORCES ASDA TO FIGHT BACK Asda has been forced to fight back with a new marketing push as it saw the slowest sales growth of the big four supermarkets for the fourth consecutive month, according to industry data. Kantar Worldpanel, the consumer research group, found that Asda had the lowest [...]
Wal-Mart in case setback April 26, 2010 ASDA owner Wal-Mart suffered a blow yesterday when a US court ruled a sex-discrimination lawsuit against the retailer can proceed as a class-action case covering more than one million female employees. Wal-Mart , the world’s largest retailer, had asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to undo class-action certification in what could [...]
Tobacco ‘price fixers’ hit with £225m fine April 16, 2010 BRITAIN’S largest two tobacco manufacturers and ten retail groups have been fined a total of £225m by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher as well as the stores – including Asda and the Co-op – were hit with fines after a seven-year investigation into price fixing. The tobacco companies agreed to [...]