Home Retail Group reported sales fell sharply over Christmas
The Home Retail Group (HRG) which owns Argos and Homebase reported that sales fell sharply over Christmas and said it will significantly cut this year’s dividend.
At Argos, like-for-like sales – which strip out the effect of store openings – were down 8.8% in the last 18 weeks of 2011.
At DIY chain Homebase, weak demand for big ticket items dragged like-for-like sales down 2.6% – steeper than the 1.3% rate recorded over the last 44 weeks.
Catalogue sales specialist Argos – which accounts for 80% of HRG’s total sales – has been hit by the squeeze from rising food and energy prices on its lower-income customers, who have been cutting back on electronics purchases in particular.
Profit margins at Argos were also eroded by a further half-percentage point, mainly due to higher delivery costs and spending on marketing.
The firm said there would be a number of store closures this year, taking its total number of Argos outlets down from the current 759 to below 751.
Profit margins at Homebase were more robust, rising a quarter percentage point, the firm said.
“In a trading environment that has been both volatile and demanding, Homebase has again seen more resilient sales,” said HRG chief executive Terry Duddy.
Shares in HRG fell 5.1% in morning trading in London on Thursday following the announcement. Shares have fallen more than 60% since February last year.
The latest disappointing sales data follows a 71% fall in half-year profits reported last year.
January 27, 2012
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HMV reports Christmas sales slump
Retailer HMV has reported a sharp slump in sales for the Christmas period but noted a slowing in the decline of its music and film business.
Like-for-like sales- which exclude out the effect of shop closures, fell 8.1% in the five weeks to the end of the December. Total sales were down 16.6%.
The group reiterated concerns about its ability to trade in its current form.
Last month, HMV warned it may be forced to sell its live music business.
Like-for-like sales for the last five weeks of 2011 at this part of the business were down by 1% against a year earlier, compared with a fall of 8.2% at HMV’s retail business.
However, HMV said that there were signs that its attempts to refocus on technology products were starting to pay off.
Like-for-like sales in technology products at the 144 stores that have been refitted with a range of portable digital products were up 51%.
“The continuing actions to focus the business and to expand our technology offering are beginning to show through,” said chief executive Simon Fox.
“We are seeing a combination of a slowing of the decline in music and film, and acceleration in the growth of technology. Undoubtedly trading conditions and the consumer environment remain challenging, but we remain confident in HMV’s future prospects.”
Technology products now represent 12% of HMV sales, from a standing start three years ago. It wants this to grow to 30% over the next three years.
HMV is attempting to refocus its business by offering more technology products, such as MP3 players, headphones and tablet computers, as well as live music and event ticketing.
The company has said it expects the impact of the store refits to be shown in its next set of results, as the work to convert stores took place towards the end of 2011.
However, analysts have questioned whether this strategy will be enough to turn HMV’s fortunes around.
January 26, 2012
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British economy shrinks by 0.2pc
The economy shrank 0.2pc in the final three months of 2011- official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
Economists, including those at the Treasury’s independent forecaster the Office for Budget Responsiblity, had expected a decline of just 0.1pc.
The fact that Britain’s factories are in crisis again will comes as a damaging blow to the Coalition, which has pinned its hopes for recovery on rebooting the UK’s lacklustre industrial production.
Manufacturing output declined by 0.9pc, its first fall since the tail end of the last recession in 2009 and its steepest fall since the onset of the downturn in 2008.
Often seen as a bellwether for the rest of the economy, the scale of the decline immediately raised concerns about the prospect of a recession with a technical double dip – defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.
For 2011 as a whole, the economy grew by just 0.9pc – its weakest since the recession.
George Osborne blamed the downturn on the eurozone and insisted that the Government would not change tack on austerity.
“These are disappointing figures about what happened to the economy at the end of last year, but they are not entirely unexpected because of what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in the eurozone crisis,” he said.
“We have got the right plan, we have got to stick to it but we have got to accept that Britain’s economic problems, difficult as they are, built up as they have been over the last 10 years, have been made worse by the situation in the eurozone, by the crisis on our doorstep.”
Prompting further concern about the outlook, though, was the scale of contribution from the state. Government output was the largest contributor to growth in the final quarter of 2011, increasing 0.4pc, despite the austerity round.
The UK’s powerhouse services sector, which accounts for three quarters of national output, flat lined in the quarter, while construction shrank by 0.5pc.
Confirmation that the UK is back in decline for the first time since the weather-affected contraction of 0.5pc in the final three months of 2010 followed the warning from Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King that the recovery would be “arduous, long and uneven”.
It also came after the International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecasts for the UK this year from 0.7pc to 0.6pc and warned that the world economy “could be plunged into another recession” by the eurozone crisis.
However, Sir Mervyn stressed that progress was being made in rebalancing the economy away from its dependency on the City of London towards manufacturing and exports, and that the country would eventually emerge “on a more sustainable footing than at any point in the past 15 years”. “There is no reason to despair,” he said.
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January 25, 2012
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Thorntons’ Christmas sales miss expectations- lose weight and gain pounds
Chocolate maker Thorntons has said its sales over the key Christmas trading period were below expectations.
Like for like sales at its own stores were down 4.2% in the 14 weeks to 7 January.
It said profitability had also been hit by the “high level of promotional activity across the market”.
Thorntons runs a total of 574 wholly owned and franchised stores in the UK, but said in June it planned to close 180 outlets in the next three years.
Jonathan Hart, Thorntons’ chief executive, said that shoppers had remained “very cost conscious” over the Christmas trading period and had been “purchasing selectively”.
Total sales at Thorntons’ own stores were down 6.8% and were down 17.5% at its franchise stores.
Sales across the Thorntons group as a whole – including Thorntons Direct and sales at supermarkets – were up 0.6% at ÂŁ83.7 million.
Mr Hart added that the firm expected “continued weakness in consumer sentiment throughout 2012″.
“This reaffirms our strategy to rebalance the business, create a smaller retail estate, revitalise our brand and most importantly restore profitability over the next three years,” he said.
Last month, Thorntons issued a profit warning, predicting it would break even in the 53 weeks to 30 June.
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January 24, 2012
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Blacks Leisure goes into administration
Blacks Leisure has announced that it is to go into administration as part of a takeover deal.
The so-called prepack arrangement will wipe out the whole value of existing shares, which have now been suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange.
The retailer said it had received a number of final offers for the bulk of the business and expected to announce a deal in the next few days.
Blacks’ stores will remain open for business as usual in the meantime.
The company owns 98 Blacks outlets, 208 Millets stores and the Peter Storm and Eurohike brands. It employs about 3,500 people.
Three partners from accountancy firm KPMG are expected to be appointed administrators, but only once details of an immediate onward sale of the company’s key trade, assets and brands has been finalised.
A pre-pack administration is one in which the insolvent company has already arranged for a buyer of its profitable assets beforehand.
It will also allow the firm to write off its ÂŁ36 million debts, and help it to close down the loss making parts of the business.
Any buyer is expected to require the closure of, or job losses at, Blacks’ head office and warehouse in Northampton.
Last month, Blacks appealed for an investor to rescue it, by buying the firm or its brands.
Blacks reported a ÂŁ16 million loss for the first half of its financial year and last month warned that its annual results would be worse than expected.
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January 23, 2012
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Eurozone unemployment stays at record high
Unemployment in the eurozone stayed at a record high in November as the impact of the sovereign debt crisis continues according to official figures.
The jobless rate in the 17 nations that use the euro was 10.3% in November for the second month in a row, according to the Eurostat statistics agency.
There were 16.3 million people in the bloc out of work.
At the same time, an index of consumer confidence fell to a two year low in December, the European Commission said.
The economic sentiment indicator fell 0.5 to 93.3 in December, which was well below the long-term average of 100, the Commission said.
Spain’s unemployment rate was highest at 22.9%, accounting for more than a quarter of the total eurozone unemployment figure.
Spain’s rate was more than four times as high as in Austria, for example, where only 4% of people were jobless.
For the whole of the European Union, which includes countries such as the UK and Sweden that do not use the euro, the unemployment rate was 9.8%.
Separately, Eurostat said that eurozone retail sales fell 2.5% in November, compared with the same month the previous year.
The steepest declines were in Portugal, which was bailed out last April, where sales fell 9.2% from a year earlier.
But there were also declines in the richer, northern European countries that are lifting eurozone growth, with Germany and the Netherlands both seeing declining retail sales.
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January 20, 2012
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Self employment jobs increase to 4.2 million
The employement figures announced yesterday showed a large rise in the number of self employed jobs as a rise of 101,000 took the total to a new record of 4.2 million.
The self employment growth is an issue raised in a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development this week.
“While some of these newly self-employed may make a long term commitment to being their own boss, or at least gain the necessary experience to do so, it’s likely that some would take a job with an employer if only they could find one,” said John Philpott, chief economic advisor to the CIPD.
The ONS said the number of employees and self employed people working part time because they could not find a full-time job had risen 44,000 to 1.31 million, the highest figure since records began in 1992.
David Kern, the chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, called the situation “difficult” but said: “Certain aspects are actually more positive than expected. Employment has increased modestly despite the rise in unemployment. This shows the level of inactivity is falling as people return to the labour market and look for work.”
On Tuesday, figures showed that the rate of inflation fell from 4.8% to 4.2% in December, which was seen as increasing the chances of another cash injection from the Bank of England when its current quantitative easing programme ends.
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January 19, 2012
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UK unemployment increases by 118,000 to 2.69 million
UK unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.69 million official figures now show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also rose to 8.4% from 8.3%, the highest since January 1996.
The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in December rose by 1,200 to 1.6 million.
The number of young people looking for work hit a new record of 1.043 million taking the rate for 16-24 year-olds to 22.3%.
The number of people in employment rose slightly in the three months to November by 18,000 to 29.12 million.
The figures support the picture of a flat UK economy, with other data released today showing average weekly earnings, including bonuses, grew at just 1.9%.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the figures were not good news: “Any increase in unemployment is disappointing and obviously a tragedy for the person who becomes unemployed – that is why we are taking action to get people back to work”.
He pointed to an increase in the number of people in work, to new private sector jobs and a small fall in the long-term unemployed.
But the figures showed the private sector was not compensating for job losses in the public sector, with the private sector creating 5,000 in the period, while 67,000 public sector jobs were lost.
In Scotland, the number of people out of work rose by 19,000 to 231,000 over the three months to November, giving a jobless rate of 8.6%.
In Wales, unemployment fell by 1,000 in the quarter to 130,000, giving a rate of 8.9%, while in Northern Ireland it fell by 7,000 to 59,000, giving a jobless rate of 6.8%.
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January 18, 2012
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Wretched December for Scottish shops
Scottish shopkeepers have reported their worst December since at least 1999, claimed the SRC.Although sales last month were up by 1.6% compared with the previous year, it was the weakest December since the survey began in 1999.
Like-for-like sales, which discounts new store openings, were up only 0.4%.
Scottish shops performed worse than the rest of the UK where total sales grew by 4.1% last month.
Although Scottish sales showed some growth, the consortium said the true picture was much worse because the latest figures are compared to December 2010 when heavy snow affected many shops.
This latest survey found that non-food sales strengthened, led by clothing and footwear, however there was a lot of heavy discounting to achieve sales.
The consortium said that consumer confidence was lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK and this uncertainty over jobs and incomes led to consumers only buying essentials or replacing goods.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “While there is no question that the trading environment is very challenging, these figures are based on data from Scottish Retail Consortium members and don’t include online sales, which is clearly a significant and growing feature of consumer consumption.? ?
“The Scottish government’s preferred measure of retail sales, the Retail Sales Index, records turnover from approximately 700 companies across Scotland and shows that the volume of retail sales in Scotland grew by 0.5% over the past year to Q3, while of course we accept that circumstances are difficult.?”?
January 17, 2012
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Barratts announces 1,610 redundancies
Barratts Priceless stores are facing closure and administration.
The administrator of troubled shoe chain Barratts Priceless has said it has made 1,610 employees redundant.
The job losses are at the retailer’s concessions within other stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Administrators Deloitte said selling the concession part of the business will “not be achieved”.
However they are still trying to find a buyer for Barratt’s 173 high street stores, which remain open.
18 store closures have already been announced.
Deloitte said it is working with the concession holders, which include department stores, to see if the former employees could be re-employed in other parts of their businesses.
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January 16, 2012
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