Sluggish Tesco sales in UK offset globally December 5, 2010 SOLID sales growth overseas is likely to help Tesco offset sluggish performance in its main British market when the world’s third-biggest retailer publishes a third-quarter trading update tomorrow. Analysts believe Tesco’s sales growth from British stores open at least a year has lagged its rivals, partly because it sells more discretionary non-food goods, items where [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 1, 2010 SAB MILLER Nomura rates the brewer “reduce” with a target price of £19.75. The broker has continued concerns about the US beer market, and that planned investment in marketing and IT would hold back any increase in margins. Nomura notes SAB’s recent claim that revenue growth would be around two per cent, slightly below earlier [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 30, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES KPMG HIRES NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS FOR NEW OVERSIGHT BODY KPMG Europe has hired three non-executive directors to sit on a new oversight body in a move that highlights the differing ways big audit firms are complying with regulatory changes in the UK. The directors are: Sir Steve Robson, a retired senior civil servant at [...]
Greenergy launches bid for Total’s UK forecourts November 28, 2010 GREENERGY, a supplier of fuel to British supermarket petrol stations, has launched a £1bn-plus bid to buy Total France’s UK retail network. Greenergy’s chief executive Paul Lester said he had held preliminary discussions with the French oil major about buying its portfolio of 780 petrol station forecourts. The supplier, in which the world’s number three [...]
RECKITT BENCKISER APPOINTS CFO November 23, 2010 RECKITT Benckiser has named Liz Doherty as its new chief financial officer (CFO). She will join in January and have a period of handover with Colin Day, the outgoing CFO. Doherty was CFO at Australia’s Brambles Industries for two years and before that group international finance director at Tesco.
Get ready for changes in bank sector November 23, 2010 CUSTOMER confidence in the banks is low. You would therefore think that the time was ripe for new entrants to the banking market. There was a time when scarcely a week went by without somebody saying they were about to become a bank. Tesco, Virgin and Metro Bank are lining up to offer the full [...]
Tesco eyes Europe expansion November 23, 2010 RETAILER Tesco plans to almost double selling space in central and eastern Europe over five years. On the third and final day of a trip with analysts to Asia, the world’s third-largest retailer said it aims to have 4.1 million square metres of selling space in its central and eastern European markets by 2014-15, up [...]
Tesco China aims to quadruple its sales November 22, 2010 SUPERMARKET Tesco plans to quadruple sales in its Chinese business over the next five years, the firm said yesterday. Tesco told investors and analysts it hopes to hit £4bn in annual sales by 2015, in a country where sales are currently rising at eight per cent year-on-year. The firm aims to build more than 1,000 [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 22, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES ROK WAS WARNED ON OUTLOOK Senior executives at Rok, the failed building group, were warned the company’s public statements risked misleading investors by failing to identify the extent or source of its problems. The board of directors was contacted by Ashley Martin, at the time the suspended finance director, after Rok released a [...]
Tesco sales pick up overseas November 22, 2010 TESCO, the world’s third biggest retailer, has seen a pick up in sales growth in South Korea, its biggest market outside Britain, as well as rising sales in China, Thailand, Malaysia and India, it said yesterday. The supermarket group, on the first day of a trip to Asia with analysts, also said returns in Asia [...]