M&S hires overseas retail chief February 24, 2011 MARKS & Spencer (M&S) has poached Jan Heere from Spanish fashion group Inditex to lead its drive for business overseas. The clothing, homewares and food retailer yesterday named Heere as its new director of international, reporting to chief executive Marc Bolland. It said Heere, fluent in English, Spanish, French, Dutch and Russian, has worked for [...]
Choppier waters sailed in quest for high returns February 23, 2011 WITH the UK equity income sector underperforming over recent times, equity funds have struggled to attract the same interest as fixed income funds. However, with the base rate so low, investors are increasingly leaving the safe waters of bond based fixed income funds in favour of the choppier waters of equity income funds, lured by [...]
Asda sales bounce back triggering staff bonus February 22, 2011 Asda sales bounced back at the end of last year it had lost ground to some of its rivals. The grocery giant, second in size only to Tesco, saw its market share slip last year. But sales in the fourth quarter rose 1.6 per cent. It said it had been boosted by its Chosen by [...]
Morgan Stanley to get Northern Rock UKFI deal February 17, 2011 UK FINANCIAL Investments, the government body in charge of managing public stakes in bailed-out institutions, is soon to appoint Morgan Stanley to advise on the sale of the Northern Rock “good bank” later this year. The sale will follow the auction of 318 RBS branches sold to Santander UK last summer for £1.65bn and is likely to attract [...]
Tesco set to outpace global rivals February 17, 2011 Tesco, the world’s third-biggest retailer, is set to outpace sales growth at major global rivals, driven by its expansion in Asia, according to international food and grocery analyst IGD. The supermarket group will see sales grow at a compound annual rate of 7.5 per cent from 2010-15, or 44 per cent in total, to reach [...]
Co-operative supermarket campaign a winner February 15, 2011 ON this page we often assess the impact that crisis or events have on brands but BrandIndex is more generally used for measuring the success or otherwise of advertising with the daily tracking allowing us to study the initial impact and also the wear-out rate. One of the more interesting campaigns this year has been [...]
Morrisons in £70m deal to join web war February 15, 2011 WM MORRISON yesterday announced that it had finally taken the plunge into online retail, splashing out £70m on baby goods firm Kiddicare. The supermarket giant has so far resisted the move to the web while rivals like Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda see online sales as vital to their financial health. But the purchase of Kiddicare [...]
Micro Focus sees sales stall February 15, 2011 BRITISH IT firm Micro Focus International lost some large deals in the US in its third quarter and said it would not be able to make up the shortfall, sending its shares plunging. The group said US government departments and major corporations on the east coast had scrapped deals to update applications running on mainframe [...]
Morrisons buys baby care website for £70m February 15, 2011 Wm Morrison Supermarkets, the country’s fourth-biggest grocer, is buying online baby products retailer Kiddicare for £70m to kick-start an online business selling non-food goods. Morrison said the deal would give it a technology platform and distribution centre to develop an online non-food business, launching its first products in 2012. The move is part of chief [...]
Mergers are needed to keep bourses in business February 13, 2011 TWO blockbuster stock exchange tie-ups were announced last week, sparking a rush of speculation that others may follow. But what are the forces behind this drive to consolidate, and is it sustainable? On Wednesday, the London Stock Exchangeagreed a merger with Canada’s Toronto Metals Exchange, to establish the world’s biggest trading exchange by listings, with [...]