Tesco: Black Friday will beat Boxing Day sales November 24, 2014 Tesco is betting the farm on Black Friday. The troubled supermarket, whose share price has plummeted more than 15 per cent since it admitted to having “overstated” its profits in September, is going all out for the sales bonanza day, which falls on November 28. To ensure some of the multi-billion-pound spend goes in [...]
Black Friday to kick off £42bn Christmas spree November 23, 2014 Britons are expected to splurge £42.4bn in the run-up to Christmas – £1.5bn more than last year – as retailers brace themselves for an American-style Black Friday shopping frenzy set to take over their websites and stores this week. Sales are forecast to rise by four per cent year-on-year in the period starting from today [...]
Christmas just got tougher for Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons: Lidl adds “discount” oysters to its deluxe range November 21, 2014 In a year dominated by the rise of the discount grocer, it's perhaps no surprise that Lidl and Aldi will be pulling out all the stops to bring consumers a bit of low-cost luxury. Lidl, which launched a £5 lobster in 2009, has a track record of doing exactly that but this year it's pulling [...]
Baby goods retailer Mothercare sees UK turnaround plan pay off November 20, 2014 MOTHERCARE posted a small rise in first-half profit and said lower losses and improving sales in the UK provided early encouragement for its new turnaround plan. While Mothercare’s overseas business is profitable, fierce competition from supermarkets such as Tesco and internet retailers like Amazon has hit it hard at home. This has left the baby [...]
BG vote against £12m share award may make a Norwegian blue November 19, 2014 Desperate times call for desperate measures. How else to interpret the crude insinuation from BG Group that its newly anointed chief executive might not join if investors vote down a one-off share award worth £12m? The FTSE 100 oil producer certainly falls into the camp signposted “urgent need”, which explains why the lavish pay [...]
Royal Mail and miners weigh heavily on FTSE – London Report November 19, 2014 THE FTSE 100 ended a four-day rally yesterday as falling iron ore prices hit mining stocks and trading updates from Royal Mail and testing firm Intertek disappointed investors. Hit by its heavy weighting in commodity-related stocks, the blue chip index underperformed European peers, dropping 12.53 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 6,696.60 points. One of the [...]
Supermarket price war fails to save sector as it enters negative sales territory for first time on record November 18, 2014 The supermarket "price war" has failed to help kick-start sales, with the sector falling into negative territory for the first time since records began in 1994. Sales were down 0.2 per cent for the 12 weeks to November 9, according to Kantar Worldpanel. The average basket price of everyday goods such as milk, bread [...]
Marks & Spencer poaches John Lewis finance chief Helen Weir November 17, 2014 MARKS & Spencer has poached Helen Weir from John Lewis to become its news finance director. Weir will succeed Alan Stewart, who quit M&S in July to join Tesco, and was fast-tracked into the job in September, when Tesco discovered a black hole in its accounts. Weir has been CFO at John Lewis since 2012 [...]
Supermarkets Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons told they must shrink to survive in war against discounters Aldi and Lidl November 17, 2014 Supermarkets need to dramatically scale down their store estates if they want to stop haemorrhaging sales and return to growth, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs who sent a stark warning to the retail industry. In a research note published yesterday, Goldman Sachs said Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons must cut space by around 20 per [...]
FTSE buoyed as Draghi speech reverses trend – London Report November 17, 2014 BRITAIN’S top share index turned positive late yesterday after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said unconventional monetary policy measures could include buying sovereign bonds. Draghi also told the European Parliament the ECB will continue to do “whatever it takes” within its mandate to save the euro and that the single currency was irreversible. The [...]