Lidl becomes official supermarket of the England football team November 17, 2015 England's football team will be indulging in Lidl's selection of discount goods after the supermarket signed a three year deal to become its official food supplier. It will also supply fruit and veg to the Scottish and Welsh national teams. Lidl will also become a backer of the FA's grassroots football initiatives which aim to give professional coaching [...]
Kantar figures show Aldi and Lidl combined now account for 10 per cent of UK grocery market November 17, 2015 Budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl now account for 10 per cent of all spend on the British grocery market for the first time since they launched in the country, new figures reveal. The two grocers have stolen market share from the more established supermarkets in a short period of time. Just three years ago, their [...]
Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley buys Goals Soccer Centres stake November 16, 2015 Outspoken Sports Direct majority shareholder Mike Ashley has diversified again: this time into Goals Soccer Centres, the Aim-listed five-a-side pitch operator. In a statement this morning, Goals Soccer said Sports Direct had bought a 4.9 per cent stake in the company – worth just under £4m – via a contract for difference (CFD). It's not the first time Ashley [...]
Discounters Aldi and Lidl pick up the space race left by Big Four supermarkets November 15, 2015 The big four supermarkets may have called an end to the space race. But for Aldi and Lidl the race has just begun, after new figures show the discounters have submitted plans for nearly five times as many stores. The latest data from construction data firm ABI Barbour shows that Aldi has submitted 93 planning [...]
Amazon launches Pantry as it seeks a bigger slice of UK grocery market November 13, 2015 A week after it launched its first physical bookshop, Amazon is taking its retro approach further with the opening of its 'Pantry' service in the UK tomorrow. In a bid to take home a bigger slice of the £177.5bn UK grocery market, Pantry will offer Amazon Prime customers next-day delivery on over 4,000 "everyday essentials", including major food and drink brands, household supplies, child [...]
Asda’s ToYou teams up with online retailers for launch of parcel collection service in UK stores November 12, 2015 Shoppers will be able to pick-up goods in Asda supermarkets that they have ordered from other online retailers as part of a new service launched today by the Walmart-owned chain to boost footfall in its stores. The retailer said the new service, called ToYou, allows customers to collect and return orders placed with third parties at any one of [...]
Black Friday 2015 UK: Police asks retailers to extend bargains day to a week in a bid to stave off the chaos of last year at stores like Tesco and Asda November 11, 2015 Perhaps Asda was right to step back from Black Friday. Police have called on retailers to put into place a better strategy for dealing with the huge numbers of shoppers expected to storm high streets and supermarkets on 27 November. The National Police Chiefs' Council has urged retailers to deploy more staff and security to help [...]
Best of the Brokers for 11 November 2015 November 11, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com COMPAGNIE FINANCIERE RICHEMONT RBC Capital Markets has reiterated its “outperform” rating and €90 target price despite the broker reducing its 2016-17 earnings per share forecasts by around five per cent, reflecting a more difficult outlook in the second half of the year [...]
Autumn Statement 2015: John Lewis and Sainsbury’s leaders meet with Treasury ministers over £8bn business rates burden November 10, 2015 The leaders of two of Britain’s biggest retailers have held talks with the government to demand for urgent reforms to the burdensome business rates regime ahead of the chancellor’s Autumn Statement. Sir Charlie Mayfield, the chairman of John Lewis Partnership, Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe, and Helen Dickinson, the director general of the British Retail Consortium [...]
Christmas 2015: Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda predicted to clean up this festive season – but Aldi, M&S and Lidl will beat Morrisons November 10, 2015 Black Friday might be set to be less of a big deal this year but Christmas is going nowhere. In fact, the UK is expected to spend £16.5bn on food, drink and presents during the festive season – up 2.5 per cent from last year. That's an average of £442 per person, according to data from [...]