Greene King warns that Brexit could hurt pub industry after strong summer September 9, 2016 The Euro 2016 football championship and sunny summer weather helped pub group Greene King enjoy a "strong start to the year", but the company said it is preparing for tougher trading conditions as a result of the recent Brexit vote. Shares in the company were down 3.8 per cent in early trading. The firm reported 1.7 [...]
Why haven’t you invested in Scotland’s blockchain sector yet? November 16, 2016 Can you hear it? That's the sound of the guys working on the chain. Blockchain to be precise. It's no longer a silent revolution in the UK financial world. It's moving fast. Really fast. In fact an amazing £634 per second fast. Or £70,000 by the time you've read this article. Scotland's rapidly-growing blockchain business is making a big noise in [...]
From Southern rail’s backfiring poster to Google’s April Fool prank gone wrong: Six of the most memorable business blunders of 2016 January 1, 2017 2016 has been an interesting year to say the least. There has of course been a plethora of notable political events over the past 12 months, but there’s also been plenty going on in the business world. With that in mind, here are some of the most memorable company clangers from over the year – from [...]
Competition heats up for Tesco’s Korea unit ahead of Monday deadline August 23, 2015 Competition for Tesco's South Korean unit Homeplus valued at about £4bn is heating up ahead of the deadline for final bids on Monday. Media reports suggest that private equity firms have formed three separate teams to bid for the supermarket's largest operation outside of the UK. Asia-based Affinity Equity Partners has allied with US private [...]
Tesco results analysis: Why earning mis-statements are like London buses October 26, 2015 Earnings mis-statements are like London buses, it turns out: you wait ages for one, before two turn up at once. Or that's according to a new study, anyway, which concluded that when one company is found to have mis-stated its earnings, its competitors in that industry could be incentivised to follow suit, leading to even more earnings mis-statements. But [...]
Tesco boss Dave Lewis is right to take issue with the government over burdens on the grocery sector November 9, 2015 It really wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about the near total domination of one supermarket: Tesco. Indeed, Tescopoly was published in 2007, setting out a variety of charges against the retail giant. Tesco’s dominance was, according to the book, based on “profiting from poverty” as it plundered the world’s resources. Everything was [...]
BT, TalkTalk, and Vodafone all perform badly in latest set of Ofcom complaints data September 28, 2016 Telecoms watchdog Ofcom has revealed the best and the worst performers when it comes to customer complaints for broadband, landlines, mobile, and pay TV. Complaints figures are presented per 100,000 customers and covers the three-month period from April to June 2016. BT topped the list of broadband complaints, followed by its subsidiary Plusnet, with 26 and 23 respectively. The industry [...]
Do you take contactless cards? How about dog leads? These are the 10 items Britons want to be contactless payment-enabled August 16, 2016 Contactless payments may already be ubiquitous here in the City, but with the ever-encroaching tide of the Internet of Things people might start using some slightly more unusual payment methods in the future. Contactless technology is used to make around seven million transactions per day in the UK, but what about cufflinks? Watches? Even your [...]
Tesco boss Dave Lewis pledges to simplify relationship with suppliers October 6, 2015 Tesco boss Dave Lewis has pledged to simplify the way the supermarket does business with suppliers as part of his efforts to change the behaviour at the group in the wake of its accounting scandal last year. Speaking at the IGD conference in Westminster this afternoon, Lewis announced plans to speed up payments so its [...]
A tale of two retail sectors: Shares in fashion retailers fall as supermarkets jump September 15, 2016 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in the retail sector today, as shares in retailers led both the risers and the fallers in the FTSE 100. Firmly in the spring of hope was the supermarket sector, where Morrisons led the risers, with shares jumping 7.13 per cent to 207.4p in [...]