Aldi, Ocado, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are all making moves to win market share, but Asda’s next step is unclear March 9, 2016 The latest supermarket sales data has painted a slightly less gloomy picture than has become customary for Britain's big four grocers, hinting that the billions poured into lowering prices and luring back customers might finally be paying off. Despite a brutal price war that has savaged Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, data from Kantar has shown [...]
Supermarkets abandon more schemes as pressure mounts on Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda and Tesco March 8, 2016 The number of developments ditched by Britain's supermarket titans has jumped since the first half of the year, with construction and planning applications also in decline, new research shows. Property advisory firm CBRE's latest analysis of the grocery property market shows that the number of abandoned schemes rose by 13.3 per cent in the second half of 2015. Proposed projects [...]
Tesco’s share price climbs as it stems declines but Asda and Morrisons crowned worst performing supermarkets in the UK March 8, 2016 Tesco has continued to stem its declines, but Asda and Morrisons have tumbled further, according to Kantar Worldpanel's latest figures for the supermarket sector. Sales at Tesco fell 0.8 per cent – meaning its performance is still well below the sector average of 0.5 per cent growth – but a relative improvement on last month's decline of [...]
Korn Ferry: Retail sector shake-up drives 40 per cent rise in new chief executive appointments in 2015 March 7, 2016 Retailers made a wave of chief executive officer (CEO) appointments last year as businesses came under pressure to improve their performance and battle declining footfall. Executive search firm Korn Ferry’s latest retail CEO tracker released today shows that there were 45 hires across the sector last year, an increase of 41 per cent on the [...]
US non-farm payrolls smash it again – but wages fall March 4, 2016 US job openings leaped again in February, way above analyst expectations. Official figures from the US' statistics bureau showed openings rose to 242,000, against expectations of 195,000. That left unemployment at 4.9 per cent, a post-recession low. However, average hourly earnings fell by 0.1 per cent during the month, from a 0.2 per cent rise the month before. “Fed [...]
Consumer goods groups challenge financials to become biggest sector in FTSE 100 as Barclays, HSBC, RBS and Standard Chartered share prices plummet year-to-date March 3, 2016 Consumer goods groups are challenging the dominance of financial firms in the FTSE 100 for the first time in a decade. The two sectors are neck-and-neck, with consumer goods actually overtaking financials briefly during February, rising to account for 20.85 per cent of the FTSE 100, compared with 20.61 per cent, before slipping back down again. [...]
FTSE reshuffle: Who’s in and who’s out of the blue-chip index – Morrisons, Sports Direct, Aberdeen Asset Management, Paddy Power Betfair, Informa, Mediclinic International March 2, 2016 Supermarket Morrison's has stormed back into the FTSE 100, having only been given the boot in the index's last quarterly review. News of a tie up with Amazon gave the big four grocer the boost it needed, sending its share price to 205.4p, up around 10 per cent on the week. Morrison's will be joined in the blue-chip [...]
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 [...]
Morrisons chairman Andrew Higginson joins Shore Capital as senior adviser March 2, 2016 Investment firm Shore Capital has signed up retail veteran and Morrisons chairman Andrew Higginson as a senior adviser to help bolster its expertise in consumer industries. Higginson, who is also currently chairman of home shopping group N Brown, joined Morrisons in 2014 to lead a shake-up at the supermarket following years of worsening sales. He previously spent 15 years on 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". [...]