Sainsbury’s closes gap in online sales March 12, 2012 SAINSBURY’S has claimed to have become the second-biggest online grocer after its orders topped 165,000 a week. The supermarket said a 20 per cent rise in orders per week, with an annualised turnover of £750m, makes its website the fastest growing online grocery business. Overall, Sainsbury’s still ranks third behind Tesco and Asda, but the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 12, 2012 Grainger Laure Duhot will be joining the UK’s largest listed residential property landlord in the new role of director of strategic capital markets. She will oversee Grainger’s evolving business strategy, with specific focus on the creation and management of new joint ventures, funds and strategic alliances. Duhot has worked extensively in investment banking and global [...]
WM Morrison aided by hunt for bargains March 8, 2012 A NEW breed of super shopper is hunting down bargains and posting tips on social networks, supermarket chain WM Morrison said yesterday. The chain, the UK’s fourth largest grocer, yesterday reported a profit of £947m in 2011 – up 8.4 per cent on the previous year. Chief executive Dalton Philips attributed some of the gains [...]
FTSE books biggest rise for a month as optimism increases March 8, 2012 BRITAIN’S top share index recorded its biggest daily rise in over a month yesterday, boosted by optimism about the US economic outlook as well as the outcome of Greece’s debt negotiations, although charts indicated that momentum could falter. Cyclical stocks, which tend to perform in tandem with economic growth, rose as US jobless claims data [...]
FTSE buoyed by miners and banks March 8, 2012 The FTSE 100 pushed higher this morning as investors gained confidence in Greece’s chances of completing a lifesaving bond swap later today. Major banks and pension funds, representing about 40 per cent of Greece’s outstanding debt, threw their weight behind Athens’ bond swap offer to private creditors yesterday. That should be eno€130bn fund for Greece [...]
Morrisons profit up – but predicts tough 2012 March 8, 2012 Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer Wm Morrison said the UK grocery market was likely to remain subdued in the coming year despite easing inflationary pressures as it posted a eight per cent rise in year profit. “We expect a challenging year in 2012,” the firm said on Thursday, adding that it still expected to deliver profitable growth. [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 6, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES FEARS GROW FOR $45BN UTILITY AS BUYOUT GROUPS’ HEDGES NEAR EXPIRY The world’s biggest private equity deal is facing rising financial pressure during the next two years with the expiry of contracts that underpinned the takeover of utility TXU. Investors in the $45bn buyout of the company, now known as Energy Future Holdings, [...]
The week ahead: Oil, gas, defence and UK interest March 4, 2012 Today Petrofac, a solutions provider to the oil and gas industry, announces full year results today. The first set of results after a restructuring exercise in 2011 could see a hike in profits. Petrofac has recently been awarded an Iraqi oilfield project, building on its presence in the region. Glencore is announcing its full-year numbers [...]
Barclays in key hiring from rival February 29, 2012 BARCLAYS Capital has demonstrated its ambition to become a leading player in UK investment banking, hiring Mark Astaire, head of corporate broking, from rival Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Astaire, who is now on three months’ gardening leave, joins his former colleague Richard Taylor at BarCap, where he will be charged with driving the team [...]
Tesco keeps on losing share to cut price rivals February 29, 2012 LEADING supermarket Tesco failed to increase sales as quickly as its rivals in the last 12 weeks, data out yesterday showed, while leaked documents showed the Co-op is well behind its sales targets already this year. Tesco’s sales rose 2.5 per cent in the 12-week period ending 19 February, compared with the same period last [...]