Tesco considers selling mobile phone business May 8, 2015 Tesco could soon shed its mobile phone business as part of chief executive Dave Lewis' scaling back process following a torrid 2014. The retailer makes around £100m a year from the business it co-owns with 02, whose network the service uses. It has around 250 Tesco Mobile shops across the country. Yet according to the [...]
Morrisons boss says customers key to survival May 7, 2015 MORRISONS new chief executive David Potts said yesterday that it would take more weeks of listening to customers and staff to understand how to bring the “British underdog” back to life, as it reported a further drop in sales. In his first trading update since taking over the reins in March, Potts said he had [...]
Analyst Views: What was your reaction to Morrisons’ first update under potts? May 7, 2015 BRUNO MONTEYNE | BERNSTEIN While we count the new chief executive David Potts as a great addition to the team, we think the task of repositioning Morrisons is much harder than for Tesco as it has less competitive advantages and it will take much longer than what currently is embedded in consensus margin expectations. CLIVE [...]
Best of the Brokers for 08 May 2015 May 7, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com 4IMPRINT WH Ireland reiterated its “buy” rating on the promotional products company following its AGM yesterday. The broker said that while the firm’s shares are never particularly cheap, “the impeccable track record and continuing opportunity suggest that decent upside remains for this stock”. [...]
Morrisons share price down after sales fall, despite slower rate under new boss David Potts May 7, 2015 The figures The Bradford-based retailer said that like-for-likes excluding fuel were down 2.9 per cent in the 13 weeks to 13 May. However, this was slightly less than analysts' forecasts of a decline of three per cent. Shares in Morrisons were trading down two per cent at 176.2 pence per share this morning. Why it's interesting [...]
Sainsbury’s dividend hit as profits plunge: Supermarket joins “horror show of income slashers” May 6, 2015 Sainsbury’s became the latest supermarket to take the knife to its final dividend yesterday, joining banks and oil companies in what analysts called a “horror show of income slashers”. Sainsbury’s said it will pay a full-year dividend of 13.2p per share, down 23.7 per cent on last year, after changing its policy in November [...]
Record grocery deflation hurts sales at Tesco, Asda and Morrisons and Sainsbury’s May 6, 2015 All four of Britain’s major supermarkets saw sales fall over the last 12 weeks, while the discounters continued to slow, as grocery price deflation reached another record low, figures released yesterday show. Sainsbury’s was the strongest performer among the big four despite a 0.2 per cent fall in sales thanks to its increased focus on [...]
Sainsbury’s share price falls after it posts first loss in a decade May 6, 2015 Nine years of uninterrupted sales growth came to a halt today as Sainsbury's reported a pre-tax loss of £72m. Investors were not impressed, and the grocer's shares were down 3.6 per cent to 264.8 pence this afternoon. The figures Sainsbury's said underlying profit before tax had fallen by 14.7 per cent to £681m in the year [...]
Supermarket share: Rise of discounters Aldi and Lidl continues – although Sainsbury’s performs well May 6, 2015 Sales at discounters Aldi and Lidl grew 15 per cent and 10 per cent respectively in the past year, data published this morning shows. On the day Sainsbury's posted its first loss in 10 years, that's significant. More on this story: Sainsbury's reports its first loss in a decade The figures, published by Kantar Worldpanel, [...]
How Sainsbury’s, Tesco and even discounters Aldi and Lidl reined in property expansion plans and ended the supermarket turf wars May 6, 2015 In the never-ending quest for growth, for decades supermarkets held a major arsenal in their weaponry – land. But not any more. Sainsbury's today revealed it took a £682m writedown on its property portfolio in another sign the decades-long land grab by supermarkets has failed to pay off. Tesco's property writedowns run into the billions [...]