Land Securities buys Bluewater shopping mall stake for £656m June 25, 2014 LAND Securities has bought Lend Lease’s 30 per cent stake in Britain’s fourth largest shopping centre Bluewater for £656m after a heated battle for the site. The acquisition is a coup for property giant, which has been selling several of its regional shopping centres in order to make way for acquisitions in the south east [...]
M&M Direct sold for £140m after listing snubbed June 16, 2014 BUDGET online sports retailer M&M Direct is set to be sold for up to £140m – reversing plans for a stock market listing in London. The company, founded as a catalogue retailer in 1997, has clinched a deal to be acquired by Danish clothing outfit Bestseller. The firm’s current backer, private equity firm TA Associates, [...]
M&S is having an identity crisis: Only radical action can save it now July 8, 2014 Thousands of articles have been written about, and just as many reasons given for, the ongoing struggles of Marks & Spencer (M&S). The latest one, given only yesterday by none other than the chief executive himself, Marc Bolland, was the “settling-in” period of the new website. This, of course, is balderdash, or at least peripheral [...]
Rooney gets captaincy but may face axe August 28, 2014 ENGLAND coach Roy Hodgson insists he is still prepared to drop Wayne Rooney if he underperforms despite naming the Manchester United striker captain of the national team. Rooney, who will lead the team in forthcoming matches against Norway and Switzerland, was the obvious choice to succeed Steven Gerrard, having won 95 caps – more than [...]
Bottom Line: Britain is proving ready for Asia’s century April 14, 2014 IT’S a welcome reminder of Britain’s world-class commercial creativity. Two firms whose brands we might think of only as local icons, House of Fraser and Cath Kidston, are attracting fierce interest from Asian buyers. In the case of House of Fraser, the deal is done, China’s San Power now has an 89 per cent stake [...]
Letters to the Editor – 11/06 – Ofsted inspections, Best of Twitter June 10, 2014 Ofsted inspections [Re: Should schools be subject to snap Ofsted inspections, yesterday] Ofsted has demonstrated that it is incapable of looking after the interests of children and young people. Labelling schools that were judged “outstanding” a few months ago as “inadequate” now confirms that its judgements are capricious: its inspectors go into schools to look [...]
Radley plots ambitious growth plans after strong sales figures May 11, 2014 RADLEY, the purveyor of handbags stamped with its famous Scottish Terrier logo, is set to follow in the footsteps of other British fashion brands by pushing into Asia to tap the region’s burgeoning middle class consumers. The private equity backed company, which started life on a market stall in Camden, is eyeing ambitious growth plans [...]
Morrisons and Tesco lose grip on market share and sales July 1, 2014 Morrisons and Tesco have both suffered another heavy fall in sales and market share in the last 12 weeks despite efforts to slash prices and win customers back into their stores. Data released yesterday from Kantar Worldpanel showed that overall grocery market grew by 2.8 per cent year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 22 June, [...]
Bottom Line: Chinese ambition trumps a market return March 31, 2014 ALMOST 25 years ago, a Hong Kong retail tycoon called Dickson Poon stunned London by taking a chance on Harvey Nichols – a fading department store in dire need of a makeover. Poon was one of the first to spot a trend that now seems obvious; the Asian shopper’s thirst for designer labels that has [...]
Billionaire Mike Ashley offloads a £218m stake in Sports Direct April 7, 2014 SPORTS Direct founder Mike Ashley is to sell £218m of his majority stake in the retailer in the latest twist in a series of events that saw him snap up a stake in House of Fraser just days ago. Ashley is selling up to 25m shares in Sports Direct through an accelerated bookbuilding run by [...]