Asda sales slow as it forecasts a bleak Christmas November 15, 2012 ASDA, the UK’s second largest supermarket, reported a slowdown in third quarter like-for-like sales growth yesterday and struck a sober note in its outlook on the Christmas quarter. Like-for-like sales rose 0.3 per cent in the three months to 30 September, down from 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter and 2.2 per cent in [...]
Sainsbury wins shoppers over with coupons November 14, 2012 J SAINSBURY boss Justin King said the supermarket’s Nectar data and coupon-at-till scheme would give it the edge over rivals ahead of another competitive christmas, as it reported a rise in half-year profit. Britain’s third largest supermarket beat forecasts with a five per cent rise in first-half profit to £373m, driven by convenience store growth [...]
Analyst Views | What performance can we expect in the second half of the year? September 6, 2012 KATE CALVERT SEYMOUR PIERCE Morrison has always been scale disadvantaged relative to its peers and the pace of change from Dalton Philips has not turned out to be fast enough. As we expect the industry to remain just as competitive and consumer demand to remain subdued…we feel Morrison will struggle to outperform its peerS. PHILIP [...]
WM Morrison aided by hunt for bargains March 8, 2012 A NEW breed of super shopper is hunting down bargains and posting tips on social networks, supermarket chain WM Morrison said yesterday. The chain, the UK’s fourth largest grocer, yesterday reported a profit of £947m in 2011 – up 8.4 per cent on the previous year. Chief executive Dalton Philips attributed some of the gains [...]
Dev Secs cuts half-year losses October 23, 2012 DEVELOPMENT Securities yesterday said it has reduced its half year loss to £0.7m from £1.3m the same time last year and said it was optimistic about its strategy of realising gains from its property portfolio. The developer said it had generated returns of £11.9m in the six months to 31 August from disposal of assets [...]
FTSE hits highest level in 17 months as smashes through 6,000 barrier January 2, 2013 BRITAIN’S top share index raced through the 6,000 level for the first time in 17 months yesterday boosted by a last-minute budget deal in the United States and solid global PMI data. London’s blue chip index closed up 129.56 points, or 2.2 per cent at 6,027.37, bettering the average return on the first day of [...]
The company tax debate must focus on realistic reform December 3, 2012 THE Public Account Committee’s (PAC) ongoing criticism of large multinationals for their corporation tax payments is an ill-considered departure from a more sensible debate. Multinational companies, like Starbucks and Google, are by definition different to domestic businesses (like John Lewis or Morrisons). This is especially true of internet retailers like Amazon. Under the current law, [...]
Best of the Brokers September 3, 2012 ADMIRAL Credit Suisse has cut the insurance firm’s target price to 1250p from 1300p and downgraded its recommendation to “neutral” from “outperform”. The note cited weak car growth. MORRISON Nomura’s rating of the supermarket giant has been slashed to “neutral” from “buy” while the target price is down to 300p from 350p. A refocused Tesco [...]
Morrisons profit up – but predicts tough 2012 March 8, 2012 Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer Wm Morrison said the UK grocery market was likely to remain subdued in the coming year despite easing inflationary pressures as it posted a eight per cent rise in year profit. “We expect a challenging year in 2012,” the firm said on Thursday, adding that it still expected to deliver profitable growth. [...]
The good, the bad January 10, 2013 THE DIVIDED state of the UK retail sector was brought into sharp focus yesterday as an upbeat Tesco and Shop Direct claimed victory in the Christmas retail wars, while Marks and Spencer suffered the fallout of a worse-than-expected festive period. Following muted performances by rivals Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, a resurgent Tesco revealed its strongest sales [...]