Electrical retailers face bleak future June 22, 2011 LOCATING the source of Kesa’s woes is fraught with difficulty, but its problems aren’t particularly new. Electrical retailers have been trading on wafer-thin margins for many years now, a fact that was disguised by the boom years when the property bubble meant TVs and white goods sold by the lorry load. When the crisis hit, [...]
Tesco lays out plans to revamp Europe business June 22, 2011 TESCO said yesterday it planned to double returns from its central and eastern European business by buying more goods regionally, opening a variety of stores and selling more services. At its annual results in April, the British supermarket group set a target to boost company-wide returns to 14.6 per cent by 2014-15 from 12.9 per [...]
Goldman Sachs picks up a broking slot with Autonomy June 21, 2011 INTELLIGENT software company Autonomy yesterday announced it had appointed Goldman Sachs as a third joint broker. Goldman, which now has 11 FTSE 100 broking clients, will work alongside existing brokers UBS and Citi. The Goldman pitch was headed up by Phil Shelley, the former UBS broker who was recruited in December to help strengthen the [...]
Tesco Bank admits glitch June 20, 2011 Some of Tesco Bank’s 6.5m customers have been unable to access their accounts during an update of computer systems, the bank has confirmed. The bank, which operates in stores, online and by telephone, said problems occurred when transferring savings and loans products in-house, from its previous joint operation with RBS. It apologised to customers and [...]
Asda exec King in shock exit June 20, 2011 Chief operating officer at supermarket giant Asda, Simon King, has quit after only six months. King joined Asda on 10 January this year, moving from Saudi Arabia where he was chief executive of supermarket operator Panda Retail, a subsidiary of The Savola Group. Prior to that he was chief executive of Tesco Kipa in Turkey, [...]
SIR TERRY LEAHY BUYS BRITISH AGAIN June 19, 2011 FORMER Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy has backed a small British technology start up. Sir Terry, who ploughed £2m of his personal wealth into software start up MetaPack last week, has now led a £1.5m cash raising for mobile coupon firm Eagle Eye Solutions. He and two top-ranked City retail analysts, Bill Currie and Iain [...]
High street gloom twice as bad as expected… June 16, 2011 THE plight of the UK consumer returned to the fore yesterday as new official data showed retail sales slumped more than twice as much as anticipated in May. Retail spending dropped off sharply with the end of April’s sunny weather and public holidays, leaving sales down 1.4 per cent in May, or 1.6 per cent [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS June 16, 2011 BARCLAYS Deutsche Bank rates the bank “buy” with a target price of 386p. The broker notes that Barclays was keen to stress its flexibility in the face of regulatory shifts at a recent investor day, forecasting a 15 per cent return on equity for BarCap in 2013 even if revenues are subdued by rule changes. [...]
FTSE tumbles as Greek crisis prompts flight from equities June 16, 2011 BRITAIN’S top shares fell sharply yesterday as fears over the global recovery and a contagion impact from the Greek debt crisis prompted investors to sell out of riskier assets such as commodity stocks. The FTSE 100 ended down 43.74 points, or 0.8 per cent, at 5,698.81, back at levels last seen after the Japanese earthquake, [...]
UK retail sales fall more than expected June 16, 2011 UK retail sales fell more than twice as expected in May, new data has shown, deepening concerns over the health of the high street. Sales fell 1.4 per cent in May compared with April, against economists’ expectations for an 0.6 per cent increase. The fall reversed April’s 1.1 per cent rise as rising job insecurity, [...]