MPs to ramp up pressure on Asda over ‘appalling’ wage shake-up plans April 29, 2019 Asda is set to face fresh pressure from politicians this week amid accusations that new pay proposals could leave thousands of workers financially worse off. Read more: Watchdog kills Sainsbury's-Asda merger: What went wrong? A campaign addressed to Asda demanding the grocery giant rows back on "unscrupulous contract changes" is set to be backed by a [...]
Provident puts up staunch defence against ‘risky and flawed’ £1.3bn Non-Standard Finance takeover bid March 24, 2019 Provident Financial urged shareholders to reject the “risky and flawed” £1.3bn bid from rival Non-Standard Finance (NSF) as the two doorstep lenders continued their war of words. Provident issued a 47-page defence against its smaller rival’s hostile takeover bid and strengthened its own board over the weekend. Read more: Provident restores dividend as doorstep lender [...]
Asda and Sainsbury’s slash petrol prices as Black Friday shopping event begins November 23, 2018 Asda and Sainsbury’s have slashed petrol prices today as UK consumers participate in Black Friday. Both supermarkets have cut 1p per litre off the price of unleaded and 2p off each litre of diesel following a decrease in the wholesale cost. Customers of the UK’s second and third largest food stores will pay no more [...]
British Land swings to a loss as retail troubles hit property values May 15, 2019 British Land became the latest in a string of property giants to reveal a fall in the value of its assets today, swinging to a loss amid turmoil in the retail sector. The FTSE 100 group, which owns developments such as Broadgate campus in the City of London, reported a £300m loss in the 12 months [...]
Tesco CEO Dave Lewis quits as supermarket declares turnaround ‘is complete’ October 2, 2019 Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis is stepping down from the Big Four supermarket, it revealed today as it declared its turnaround is complete. The CEO will leave the business next summer after chairman John Allan said he had accepted his resignation letter “with regret”. Read more: Tesco sells mortgage arm for £3.8bn Lewis called the [...]
Morrisons and Tesco flag concerns over Sainsbury’s-Asda merger December 4, 2018 Morrisons and Tesco have added their voice to the growing chorus of retailers which have spoken out against the proposed £12bn merger between Asda and Sainsbury’s. Both grocers have this week brought into question Sainsbury’s planned takeover of rival Asda, which would see Britain’s second and third largest supermarkets overtake Tesco to the top spot. [...]
Aisle be damned: The knives are out for big UK grocers January 9, 2019 Aldi and Lidl’s tills jingled all the way in December – handing them their highest-ever combined market share for the festive season, data from Kantar Worldpanel showed this week. All the major supermarkets lost market share in the 12 weeks to 30 December as Aldi’s sales jumped 10.4 per cent while Lidl’s were up 9.4 [...]
Competition watchdog warns of casework impact in event of no-deal Brexit February 14, 2019 The UK’s competition regulator warned it would have to take “tough decisions” on its casework in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said investigations into markets and price fixing could be impacted if it is forced to take on additional work after the UK leaves the EU. All antitrust [...]
Retail round up: What’s happening on the high street? January 11, 2019 Not as bad as it could have been. That’s the general feeling about high street performance over Christmas after major retailers and the supermarkets published their festive figures this week. The British Retail Consortium says that 2018 was the worst Christmas for retails for 10 years but, as ever, the figures show there are winners [...]
Sainsbury’s sees rising sales despite ‘uncertain’ outlook November 8, 2018 Sainsbury’s posted growth in underlying profit for its half-year results today, despite highlighting an 'uncertain' outlook ahead of the Christmas spending period. The figures Like-for-like sales climbed 0.6 per cent year on year during the six months, rising from the 0.2 per cent growth it reported for the first quarter of the year. That helped revenue hit £16.8bn, up [...]