What you need to know before the open April 10, 2014 Not much in the way of surprises from last night’s Fed meeting minutes. It seems officials are not in any hurry to raise rates, and markets rebounded on the news. The sell-off seen earlier in the week, though, seems to have been because of worries over pricey valuations, rather than rates concerns. According to the [...]
M&S sees clothes sales rise but Bolland still cautious April 10, 2014 A glimmer of hope for high street store Marks & Spencer. The retailer’s reported that clothing sales rose 1.3 per cent in the first part of 2014, up 0.6 per cent like-for-like. General merchandise saw group sales up a modest 0.2 per cent in the 13 weeks to the end of March, but still declining [...]
Co-op in turmoil as Myners quits April 9, 2014 THE CO-OPERATIVE Group was plunged into fresh chaos last night after the man tasked with saving the troubled organisation quit the group. Lord Myners, a former City minister, is set to resign his post as senior independent director just four months after he was appointed to lead an overhaul of the company’s bloated structure. It [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 09 April 2014 April 8, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Heartbleed bug threatens web A flaw has been discovered in a encryption method used on about two-thirds of all websites, including Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Dropbox, potentially exposing web traffic, user data and stored content to cyber criminals. The heartbleed bug was found in the OpenSSL software by a team of security engineers [...]
Strong results for meat supplier Cranswick as pig rearing grows April 7, 2014 SAUSAGE maker Cranswick has bucked tough conditions in the grocery market and record pig prices to post strong fourth quarter results yesterday. The FTSE 250 firm, which supplies supermarkets including Sainsbury’s with upmarket sausages and cooked meats, said underlying sales excluding acquisitions were up 12 per cent in the year to 31 March. Analysts forecast [...]
London Report: M&S in focus as clothing sales forecast to fall April 7, 2014 HIGH street bellwether Marks & Spencer will be in the spotlight this week as the giant retailer updates the City for the three months to the end of March. Analysts predict that the company’s clothing sales will fall for the 11th quarter in a row, inviting questions about what the firm can do to revamp [...]
Marks & Spencer plans to open 250 new shops overseas April 1, 2014 MARKS & Spencer (M&S) is gunning for a 40 per cent boost in profits from international stores and hundreds of new outlets abroad in just three years, as the firm lays out a major expansion plan. Announced in Paris yesterday, the fresh strategy will mean a huge jump in the number of M&S stores outside [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 01 April 2014 March 31, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES US overseas cash pile rises to $947bn American companies have stockpiled nearly a trillion dollars of cash offshore to avoid paying higher tax bills at home, according to an analysis released yesterday. The growing overseas cash pile has also become the most visible sign of corporate America’s unwillingness to place bigger bets on [...]
Profits at Next set to overtake Marks & Spencer March 20, 2014 PROFITS at fashion and homeware retailer Next are set to top those at rival Marks & Spencer for the first time after the group rounded-off a buoyant year of sales with a strong Christmas trading period. The group, which has over 800 shops in the UK and overseas, said sales rose 5.5 per cent in [...]
Next overtakes M&S as CEO delivers economic warning March 20, 2014 High street fashion store next had, in its own words, a great year last year. In a landmark moment, it's overtaken Marks and Spencer as the biggest clothes retailer by profits in the UK. It's upped its sales growth forecast significantly – from between one and four per cent to between four and eight per cent. [...]