The supermarket wars are in full swing and Tesco is beefing up to fight its turf December 1, 2021 I last saw Sir Terry Leahy in 2013, two years after his messy divorce from Tesco. He agreed to a chat about retail on the condition he wouldn’t have to talk about the supermarket juggernaut he helped to create or his successor, Philip Clarke, who’d begun to question the state of the business he’d been [...]
Lord Sainsbury’s family office plots £253m investment into private equity funds November 29, 2021 Lord David Sainsbury, the great grandson of Sainsbury’s founder, plans to bet big on private equity funds through his family office Innotech Advisers, according to a UK registry filing. The London-based firm, which has stepped away from public markets to invest in private companies – predominantly through loans and participation in limited partnerships with independent [...]
City rumour mill grinds around possible mega private equity offer for Marks & Spencer November 22, 2021 As shoppers prepare for a black Friday spree, the bargain hunt for good value UK companies continues for private equity firms. The rumour mills are now grinding around a possible bid by Apollo Global Management for UK high street staple Marks & Spencer, sending shares 3 per cent higher in early trade. The New York-based private equity giant [...]
New York-based Apollo Global Management mulls buyout of Marks & Spencer November 22, 2021 Private equity giant Apollo Global Management is reportedly mulling a buyout of UK high street staple Marks & Spencer.
It’s happened: Global M&A hits all-time record of $5 trillion in 2021 November 18, 2021 Dealmaking has reached new heights this year, as the momentum seen each quarter continued unabated and propelled the global M&A market to a new all-time record of $5 trillion in deals – with still one month to go. As of yesterday, global transactions have topped $5 trillion so far this year – already 40 per [...]
McColl’s shares topple by a third after supply chain nightmare hits profit forecast November 17, 2021 Convenience store chain McColl’s saw shares plummet by a third after it warned annual profits would be impacted by supply chain chaos. The firm blamed a lack of HGV drivers for a lack of supply of key items in the final quarter of its financial year. It said its EBITDA for the 2021 financial year [...]
Revealed: Amazon to open 260 supermarkets across UK as it plots to take on Tesco and Sainsbury’s directly November 17, 2021 Amazon has developed detailed plans to storm the UK supermarket sector as the e-commerce is planning to open hundreds of cashierless grocery stores across the country in the next three years. More than 260 Amazon-owned and run supermarkets are to be launched before the end of 2024, namely 60 in 2022, another 100 per year [...]
Whole Foods was Amazon’s grocery debut, now it’s time for a main course November 11, 2021 Amazon took its first major step into grocery when it bought Whole Foods Market in 2017 for $13.7bn. The purchase sent shockwaves through the retail world at the time. It marked Amazon’s first step into brick-and-mortar retail and analysts interpreted the move as an effort to muscle in on the supermarket sector. But Amazon’s Whole [...]
Activist fund Gatemore buys stake in DFS and warns of buyout vulnerability November 10, 2021 Gatemore Capital management has bought a stake in DFS and told its fund investors that the sofa chain is undervalued by public markets and thus ripe for a private equity bid. Adding to its roster of listed British retailers, which includes Moss Bros, French Connection and Superdry, the activist fund told investors last month that [...]
A fallen tree on a railway scuppered Cop26 travel plans – and that was the high point November 2, 2021 Cop26, billed as our last chance to save humanity, went very well. Within hours of wandering into the summit, borrowing a phrase from Greta Thunberg, comparing himself to James Bond, and reminding cows, once again, that they really shouldn’t burp, Boris Johnson saved the world, repaired tense relations with Europe, put the French and the [...]