Tobacco ‘price fixers’ hit with £225m fine April 16, 2010 BRITAIN’S largest two tobacco manufacturers and ten retail groups have been fined a total of £225m by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher as well as the stores – including Asda and the Co-op – were hit with fines after a seven-year investigation into price fixing. The tobacco companies agreed to [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 8, 2010 Signia Wealth The ultra high net worth wealth manager has hired mobile phones tycoon John Caudwell to take up a seat on its advisory board. Caudwell will provide entrepreneurial leadership for the firm alongside its other advisers, including private equity guru Jon Moulton. Caudwell previously founded and led the Caudwell Group, including mobile phone retailer [...]
Asda launches price cuts as discount war hots up November 12, 2009 ASDA has raised the stakes in the Christmas price war by slashing £150m from the price of products in a discount drive designed to put pressure on its rivals. Asda, which has based its marketing on being the cheapest of the big four supermarkets, said consumers were still unwilling to part with cash. A day [...]
Wal-Mart in case setback April 26, 2010 ASDA owner Wal-Mart suffered a blow yesterday when a US court ruled a sex-discrimination lawsuit against the retailer can proceed as a class-action case covering more than one million female employees. Wal-Mart , the world’s largest retailer, had asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to undo class-action certification in what could [...]
Asda and J Sainsbury to battle it out in crunch time for grocers November 8, 2009 J Sainsbury and Asda will go head -to-head this week to show the City how they have been faring in the consumer downturn. Sainsbury’s, Britain’s third-biggest grocer, is expected to post a 16 per cent rise in first-half profits on Wednesday and warn of a tougher second half amid stiff competition. And Asda, owned by [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 27, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES MARKET SHARE SLIP FORCES ASDA TO FIGHT BACK Asda has been forced to fight back with a new marketing push as it saw the slowest sales growth of the big four supermarkets for the fourth consecutive month, according to industry data. Kantar Worldpanel, the consumer research group, found that Asda had the lowest [...]
Banks and energy companies push the FTSE slightly higher but miners struggle April 12, 2010 Gains from banks and energy stocks outweighed weaker miners to leave Britain’s top share index slightly higher by the close yesterday, as anxiety about debt-plagued Greece eased, supporting risk appetite. The FTSE 100 ended the day 6.67 points higher at 5,777.65, slipping back after hitting an intra-day peak since June 2008 of 5,803.71 early in [...]
Clothes push retail sales up 0.3pc in April May 20, 2010 IMPROVING clothing and department store sales offset flat food sales to push British retail revenues slightly higher than expected in April, according to the Office for National Statistics. Including petrol and diesel, high street sales rose 0.3 per cent last month, above analysts’ forecasts of 0.2 per cent and up 1.8 per cent year-on-year. The [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 15, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES INVESTORS RAISE FEARS ON “STEWARDSHIP CODE” As the Financial Reporting Council prepares to issue a shareholders’ best practice code, industry groups and institutional investors say they are worried it will become another list of boxes to tick. The FRC’s consultation on the world’s first official “stewardship code” closes on Friday and it expects [...]
The grocer who says this year will test retailers as well as shoppers May 31, 2010 Much like the rest of the country, the chief executive of the country’s third largest supermarket group is trying to make up his mind about the coalition government. At the start of the election campaign Sainsbury’s boss Justin King was one of many who backed Tory plans to scrap national insurance hikes for employers, a [...]