Asos teams up with Google to launch a shopping skill for Google Assistant October 11, 2018 Asos is expanding into voice-assistant technology in a partnership with Google, making it one of the first UK fashion retailers to debut on Google Assistant. Customers in the UK and US will be able to engage with Asos' fashion chatbot Enki, starting a conversation using the phrase "Hey Google, talk to Asos" on a smartphone or [...]
Coronavirus eats into Finsbury Food revenue as sales sink during lockdown July 15, 2020 Cake manufacturer Finsbury Food Group said it expects annual sales to dip slightly in 2020 as a plunge in sales during the second half of the year during the coronavirus crisis diluted progress made last year. The bakery group said second half sales slumped as a result of the national lockdown, with sales sinking 24 [...]
Founder of fashion delivery firm Clipper tables £300m takeover bid November 19, 2019 The founder of Clipper Logistics, which provides delivery services for online retailers such as Asos and John Lewis, is said to be preparing a £300m bid to take the company private. Read more: Asos to boost Black Friday offers after poor trading last year Steve Parkin, who founded Clipper in 1992, has approached fellow board [...]
Ant Financial takes minority stake in fintech unicorn Klarna March 4, 2020 The highest valued fintech company in the world, Ant Financial, has taken a minority stake in payments platform Klarna. The “buy now pay later” specialist confirmed that Alipay owner Ant Financial had bought a less than one per cent stake, but refused to disclose how much it is worth. Ant Financial is part of the [...]
Former ITV boss Adam Crozier in talks to chair Kantar January 19, 2020 The former chief executive of ITV is in discussions to take over as chairman of market research giant Kantar. Adam Crozier, who led the broadcaster for seven years to 2017, has been approached about the role by Bain, which bought a majority stake in Kantar from WPP for $4bn (£3.2bn) last year. A source close [...]
Boohoo shares continue downward spiral amid sales slump warnings July 14, 2020 Boohoo shares continued to slump this morning after more than three days of losses, following allegations of poor working conditions in the fast fashion firm’s garment factories that have weighed on analysts’ sales forecasts. Shares slumped 17.7 per cent to 230p yesterday, after hovering around the 410p mark for the majority of June. Investors continued [...]
Fintech unicorn Klarna posts first ever annual loss February 26, 2020 Klarna, the joint largest fintech startup in Europe, has suffered its first ever annual loss, with the “buy now pay later” specialist hit by heavy credit losses. The company, which lets people pay for online purchases in installments, reported a loss of 1.1bn Swedish krona (£87.5m) on revenues of 7.2bn krona last year, its first [...]
Kantar appoints former ITV boss Adam Crozier as chairman February 11, 2020 Kantar today announced it has appointed former ITV chief executive Adam Crozier to chair the market research firm after it was spun out of WPP last year. Crozier, who currently chairs Asos, Whitbread and cinema chain Vue, has previously held the top jobs at Saatchi & Saatchi, the Football association and Royal Mail. The appointment [...]
Boohoo shares plunge as major shareholder dumps stock July 13, 2020 Boohoo shares continued last week’s downturn this morning, slumping as much as 15.4 per cent as the decision by one of the fast fashion retailer’s biggest shareholders to dump the majority of its stock continued to spook investors. Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA), the UK’s largest listed asset manager, on Friday sold off shares in the [...]
The Gym Group appoints former Tesco and Asos finance director as chief financial officer October 3, 2018 Low-cost exercise chain The Gym Group has appointed former Tesco director Mark George as its chief finance officer. George was most recently the deputy at car dealing company Auto Trader and has also held senior finance positions at Tesco and fashion house Asos. He will join The Gym Group at the end of the month. Gym Group chief executive [...]