Trolley wars: Drastic Dave’s no-frills move must hit the Jackpot for shareholders September 20, 2018 Tesco took a cheap shot at budget retailers Aldi and Lidl yesterday, launching its own discounter chain, Jack’s. Chief executive Dave Lewis opened the first store in a mothballed former Tesco outlet in the small Cambridgeshire town of Chatteris yesterday, with another 10 to 15 launches in the pipeline. The chain is named after Tesco founder [...]
‘Chicken king’ Boparan to close a third of Giraffe and Ed’s Diner restaurants March 4, 2019 Giraffe and Ed’s Diner have become the latest casualties in the struggling casual dining sector after the restaurant chains’ owner said it will close a third of their branches. The Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG), which is owned by ‘chicken king’ Ranjit Singh Boparan, is widely reported to have entered a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) that will [...]
Fishing Republic on the hook as it tries to land extra finance November 12, 2018 Angling retailer Fishing Republic warned today its future is uncertain as it works to raise extra finance. The Aim-listed business said there was “material uncertainty regarding the group’s financial position” and said “the group continues to trade only with the short-term support of key creditors”. Shares in the group were suspended on 16 October after [...]
Store wars: Aldi is in no mood to be Jack’s of all trades October 2, 2018 Aldi vowed to make Tesco discounter brand Jack’s a dull boy yesterday, saying it will remain the UK’s cheapest grocer. “It will be a real struggle for any more complex supermarket to successfully imitate our model let alone replicate it,” Giles Hurley, chief exec of Aldi UK and Ireland, said as he threw down the [...]
Euribor rate-rigging trial delivers the fraud office a much-needed win April 1, 2019 The convictions of two former Barclays bankers in the Serious Fraud Office’s long and protracted probe into Euribor manipulation will inject a new sense of purpose into an agency weary from a string of defeats and climbdowns. Today Carlo Palombo and Colin Bermingham were sentenced to a combined nine years in prison for their role in [...]
Tesco reports gender pay gap of 8.7 per cent saying male workers take more shifts that offer premiums February 21, 2018 Tesco has reported a gender pay gap of 8.7 per cent across its UK retail business after crunching the pay data of more than 225,000 members of staff. It becomes the first of the big supermarkets to report the figures required by government ahead of an April deadline. All firms with more than 250 employees [...]
The Gym Group gets in shape with revenue and profit boost March 19, 2019 Low cost exercise chain the Gym Group said today it boosted revenue 35 per cent last year to £123.9m as it added 30 new gyms to its portfolio. The figures Statutory profit before tax for 2018 was £10m, up from £9.2m the year previously. Its shares rose nearly seven per cent to 216p in early trading. [...]
The AA’s opting for the long road to stability April 4, 2019 Shares in the AA have been swerving all over the place since it returned to the stock market in 2014. After jumping from a float price of 250p to 430p the following year, the ambitions of the team that steered the roadside rescue outfit through an unusual management-buyout-cum-IPO began to stutter. The stock slid and [...]
May called business chiefs to reassure over latest change in Brexit negotiation plan April 3, 2019 Theresa May last night tried to reassure bosses at some of Britain’s biggest firms, including Rolls-Royce, BT and GlaxoSmithKline, about her latest change in direction on Brexit negotiations. The PM hosted a call with the co-chairs of her business councils last night, shortly after announcing she would look for another extension to Article 50 so [...]
Property of the Week: The historic lodge of the former St John’s Wood dairy is on sale for £5.35m March 15, 2019 It’s hard to imagine it now, but there was a time when Tesco didn’t even exist and Londoners got their milk from cows that wandered the streets. This lodge harks back to this simpler time, as it used to service the St John’s Wood farm and dairy. There used to be hundreds of milking parlours [...]