Branding and buyouts: Brand Union’s Toby Southgate on corporate takeovers, Tesco’s farms and Tesla’s higher purpose August 1, 2016 Perceptions of brands change over time,” says Toby Southgate, worldwide chief executive of Brand Union. “And building them takes a long time. It’s not about the final push over the line.” A consultative arm of WPP, Brand Union specialises in brand strategy, and has shaped the identity of some of the world’s biggest names, including Vodafone, Absolut [...]
Tesco Mobile is offering you cash back in exchange for looking at ads June 9, 2016 Tesco Mobile is offering customers the option to swap ads for money off their bill. The budget mobile brand, which runs on O2's network, has partnered with Australian ad and content company Unlockd and will let Android mobile customers knock £3 off their monthly bill. Tesco Mobile customers are able download an app from the Google Play store that [...]
Skype billionaire Niklas Zennstrom and LocalGlobe back UK fintech startup Cleo and its Facebook AI chatbot for finance July 26, 2017 The billionaire co-founder of Skype and one of the UK’s top startup venture capital investors are backing a UK fintech behind a chatbot helping people with their finances that could kill off banking apps. Niklas Zennström along with Robin and Saul Klein’s LocalGlobe have invested £2m in a seed stage funding round of Cleo. Cleo’s [...]
Morrisons is feeling pretty chill about #Marmitegate, saying price rises will be “minimal” March 9, 2017 The chairman of Morrisons supermarket has reassured shoppers that he will be minimising any price rises on groceries following the Brexit vote. The price of a grocery basket became a source of controversy last year when Unilever demanded higher prices from supermarkets, but Tesco refused – leading to a stand-off that became known as #Marmitegate. But [...]
Does the acquisition of Harris and Hoole from Tesco mean Caffe Nero is entering a new era? June 29, 2016 Last week's announcement that Caffe Nero has acquired in-supermarket coffee chain Harris and Hoole from Tesco sent a strong signal that the brand is committed to modernisation. This is vital in a market where casual dining brands have to fight huge levels of competition and a fast-moving, fickle audience base that will often be swayed by promotions and [...]
Tesco’s share price drops as supermarket misses sales forecasts but beats consensus on profit April 13, 2016 Tesco's share price fell 4.7 per cent on the open this morning, despite the supermarket returning to profit and sales growth. The supermarket was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 in early trading – and it was dragging some of its rival grocers down with it. [stockChart code="TSCO" date="2016-04-13 09:17"] The figures The troubled supermarket's [...]
Supermarket sales grew at their fastest rate since June 2014 in the last 12 weeks March 7, 2017 Supermarket sales were growing at their fastest rate since June 2014 over the past three months as inflation started to bump up prices for key items such as tea, butter and fish. According to data from Kantar Worldpanel, supermarket sales grew by 2.3 per cent year-on-year for the 12 weeks ending 26 February. Kantar said [...]
Tesco is going deeper into the mortgage market April 19, 2016 Another surefire sign UK house price madness isn't showing any signs of abating: now Tesco wants a bigger slice of the pie. Or that's the suggestion from a statement this morning, in which the supermarket said its banking arm (the snappily-titled Tesco Bank) is launching its own mortgage intermediary service – called, you guessed it, Tesco Mortgage Intermediaries. The [...]
“You just have to get on with things”: UK dealmaking is off to its best start to a year since 2008 February 2, 2017 UK dealmakers have had a flying beginning to the year, with 2017 marking the best annual start for British mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity since 2008. After Reckitt Benckiser’s offer for Mead Johnson Nutrition, the total value of deals involving UK parties so far this year has reached $34.9bn (£27.8bn), according to Thomson Reuters. Read [...]
Tesco’s share price falls as supermarket sells half of stake in ecommerce site Lazada to Alibaba for £90m April 12, 2016 Tesco is continuing to shed itself of unwanted assets as management continues to plug the gaps in its balance sheet, this morning revealing it has partially offloaded its stake in ecommerce site Lazada to Chinese giant Alibaba. The supermarket received $129m (£90m) for its 8.6 per cent stake in the business, which acts a platform to sell global [...]