Tesco’s share price has recovered this year as Dave Lewis implements his turnaround plan, but the preliminary results could affect sentiment April 13, 2016 When Dave Lewis took over as Tesco chief executive in September 2014, much was made of his nickname Drastic Dave, particularly as drastic measures were necessary to revive the group's flagging fortunes. Lewis was parachuted in from Unilever to turn around the Tesco juggernaut after a scandal that had seen the retailer overstate its profits. [...]
The Harcourt restaurant review: Reindeer and meatballs are reimagined as pub grub in Marylebone April 12, 2016 There are enough fancy ways to dine in London to fill your fancy pants several times over. You have 12-course tasting menus and sprawling art deco palaces and molecular gastronomy and precise fine dining and sharing concepts and foraged ingredients and organic gluten-free superfoods and authentic indigenous cuisines from previously undiscovered nations. But sometimes you [...]
For one day only, City restaurant M is having a flash sale, with everything on the menu costing just £2.40 April 12, 2016 Normally you'd be hard pressed to get a three course meal in the Square Mile for under £40, but one upscale haunt is pledging to sell menu items for peanuts for a whole day. To celebrate the launch of its new 24-hour cookbook, opulent M on Threadneedle Street, famed for its Kobe beef steaks and wealthy [...]
Tesco’s share price falls as supermarket sells half of stake in ecommerce site Lazada to Alibaba for £90m April 12, 2016 Tesco is continuing to shed itself of unwanted assets as management continues to plug the gaps in its balance sheet, this morning revealing it has partially offloaded its stake in ecommerce site Lazada to Chinese giant Alibaba. The supermarket received $129m (£90m) for its 8.6 per cent stake in the business, which acts a platform to sell global [...]
Tesco explores sale of Dobbies Garden Centres April 11, 2016 Tesco is preparing to sweep its shelves clean of more non-core businesses – this time in the gardening section – as the supermarket chain focuses on reviving sales at its core supermarkets. The retailer, which will publish its full-year results on Wednesday, already sold off a number of assets including its South Korean business Homeplus for £4.2bn last [...]
Tourist boom putting pressure on Cuba’s beer industry April 10, 2016 The influx of American tourists into Cuba may have worked wonders for its travel and leisure industry, but the boom has taken a toll on the country’s main brewer. In recent weeks beer sellers have been running out of the Caribbean island’s two favourite brands, Cristal and Bucanero. The shortages have been fuelled by the increase [...]
Tesco full-year results: Three things you need to know April 10, 2016 Tesco may just have a shock in store for shareholders and the rest of the City – and for once, it's a good one. Call it a belated Easter gift. The struggling supermarket is about to report a surprise turnaround in sales after Dave Lewis's crack of the whip over the past several months. Belt tightening [...]
Learning how to ski doesn’t have to be a downhill struggle. Why not grab lessons on the slopes of Verbier? April 8, 2016 The Bec Des Rosses, Verbier, holds mythical status in the world of skiing: 3,223m of snow and rock, angled at over 60 degrees; it’s one of the toughest mountains on Earth and hosts the final, deciding race of the Freeride World Tour (FWT) every March. “The FWT and easy access to off-piste skiing means that [...]
From Doctor Who penthouses gothic three-beds, here are the new builds hitting the London property market this week April 7, 2016 Queen’s Wharf, Hammersmith Four penthouses are on sale atop a riverside scheme in Hammersmith. Named Clark, Dixon, Appleby and Thorne after four key figures in the construction of Hammersmith Bridge, the penthouses have three bedrooms and a private roof terrace each. Prices start at £4.2m and they’re due to be finished in 2017. The scheme [...]
I spent the entire day on the sofa using only my smartphone to feed, clean, entertain, wash and supply me. Here is my story. April 7, 2016 There’s never been a better time to have an aversion to effort. Fuelled by a heady mix of collective laziness and a perceived lack of free time, a new breed of smartphone app has rocketed to popularity: the convenience app; the concierge app; the can’t be bothered doing it myself app. All of them developed [...]