Ocado raises £575m as it looks to widen online grocery market share June 21, 2022 Online retailer Ocado has raised £575m in a share placing, rallying extra funds as demand dries up. The London-listed firm announced the placing after the stock market closed yesterday, revealing just hours later that it had met its quota. The placing auctioned off 72.3m shares at 795p — a nine per cent discount to yesterday’s [...]
Train chaos: How will the rail and Tube strikes affect services across London and the UK today? June 21, 2022 Rail and Tube strikes are set to cripple services this week, causing travel chaos for passengers across the UK as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail and 13 train operators are going on strike. Here is a quick rundown of what to expect today and this week. – When [...]
An online sales tax would be a small hassle for Amazon, but a hard blow for our shops June 21, 2022 The Treasury is considering whether to introduce an online sales tax (OST) as a “means to rebalance the taxation of the retail sector between online and in-store retail”. A decision is expected in autumn – probably as part of the Chancellor’s Budget. If the government has any sense, it will run a mile from taking [...]
Letters: Our chance to shine June 21, 2022 [Re: Brexit offers opportunity to unlock City’s potential, MPs say, June 16] Results of the report published by a cross-party group of MPs last week provide the best Brexit-related news in a while. Now London must deliver on its potential to cast off the regulatory shackles and reinvigorate its global reputation as a centre of [...]
Deliveroo poaches Money Supermarket chief financial officer June 20, 2022 Deliveroo has poached MoneySupermarket.com’s chief financial officer for the same role at the food delivery firm. The London-listed platform announced on Monday that Scilla Grimble will join the company as CFO and board director by no later than June 2023. Current CFO Adam Miller will initially be replaced by Deliveroo’s VP for investor relations David [...]
The power of summer: Primark sales inch above pre-pandemic levels June 20, 2022 The owner of Primark has put recovering sales down to the power of summer, tourism and the march back to the office. Associate British Foods (ABF), which owns sugar ad agriculture businesses alongside the budget retailer, said sales over the past six months were four per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels, though they remain around [...]
Week ahead: City braces for further inflation surge June 19, 2022 Investors are bracing for fresh data this week to point to a further surge in UK inflation, sending the rate of price rises beyond an already 40-year high. London’s FTSE 100 last week was caught up in one of the most volatile weeks for global stock markets since the early days of the pandemic. It [...]
Investors ditch London shares after fifth successive Bank of England rate rise June 16, 2022 Investors ditched London-listed stocks today after the Bank of England raised interest rates for the fifth successive meeting. The capital’s premier FTSE 100 index dropped 3.14 per cent to 7,044.98 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, fell 3.05 per cent to below [...]
THG rejects all takeover approaches as significantly undervaluing e-commerce firm June 16, 2022 THG has rejected all recent approaches for the e-commerce beauty firm, stating the proposals had “significantly undervalued” the firm. Matthew Moulding’s retail emporium had received indicative proposals from “numerous parties” in recent months, it had confirmed in its full year results earlier this year. Last month, it also rejected an indicative non-binding proposal from a [...]
West End landlords Shaftesbury and Capco push ahead with £3.5bn merger June 16, 2022 West End landlords Shaftesbury and Capital & Counties Properties (Capco) have agreed to push ahead with a £3.5bn merger, which will see much of London’s beloved theatre district fall under one wing. The merger, which had raised the eyebrows of one investor, will see shareholders receive 3.35 new Capco shares for each Shaftesbury share. Combining [...]