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Target Canada closed for good now | Rewe committed to Russia

Tesco may face £3bn bill

Tesco is facing a bill of £3bn for its failing supermarkets as Britain's biggest retailer fights against falling sales and profits, City analysts have warned, telegraph.co.uk reports. The supermarket group will reveal a £3bn impairment charge on its property in annual results later this month, according to estimates by analysts at Barclays. The charge - the biggest seen in the industry to date - will mean that Tesco reports a huge pre-tax loss in its full-year results on April 22, although the writedown represents a non-cash charge.

UK: Tesco's efforts paying off
It looks as if Tesco’s efforts to take on the discounters are finally starting to bear fruit, fool.co.uk reports. According to data from research company Kantar Worldpanel, Tesco’s sales rose 0.3% in the 12 weeks to 29 March, following growth of 1.1% in the 12 weeks to March 1, Tesco’s strongest sales performance in 18 months.

Rewe Austria: more online and less stores

Frank Hensel, CEO of Rewe Austria, is convinced that eventually there will be less grocery stores and a strong grocery e-commerce instead, reports Austrian ORF. In order to secure stable market shares for the Austrian retail group Hensel plans on extending its online shops and grocery delivery services, esmmagazine.com reports. However, Hensel points out that the primary focus lies solely on securing existing market shares and not so much on growing overall online-shares. Spar, which is the Rewe's biggest competitor in Austria, has not launched an online shop yet.

US specialty food sales hit $109bn in 2014
Specialty food sales topped $100bn for the first time in 2014, with retail and foodservice sales reaching a record $109bn. Retail sales grew 19% from 2012 to 2014 versus just 2% for all food, gourmetretailer.com reports. Nuts, seeds, dried fruits and vegetables made it into the top 10, with $1.3bn in sales in 2014.

Spain: Mercadona's purchases to Malaga companies worth 0.5 bln
Last year, Mercadona made purchases from suppliers in the province of Malaga worth €509mn, an increase of 6% compared with 2013, laopiniondemalaga.es reports. In the whole of Andalusia, the retailer's purchases amounted to 2.636mn, 5% more. In its annual report, the supermarket chain stated that this is the result of its commitment to fresh produce (i.e., local fruit and vegetables, which has led to cooperation with new local suppliers), to the incorporation of new companies to the Andalusian network of intermediate suppliers (with a total of 30 at the moment) and to the chain's growth nationwide, with mangoes and avocados from Malaga, among other products of Andalusian origin, reaching the shelves.

Target Canada closed for good on Sunday
The remaining Target locations in Canada closed their doors for good on Sunday, marking the end of the U.S. retail giant's short-lived foray north of the border, thestar.com reports. Fans of the American retail giant took to Twitter to express their sadness over the company's departure from Canada.

US: Walton family to trim stake in Walmart
The Walton family plans to shed its ownership to offset the impact of share buybacks that have raised its stake in the retail giant to about 50%, fortune.com reports.

Japan: Seven & I logs record-high annual profit

Japan: Seven & I’s profit came to ¥343.3bn, up 1.1% from the previous year, thanks to the robust performance of convenience store unit Seven-Eleven Japan Co., although supermarket subsidiary Ito-Yokado Co. saw its sales and profit decline, japantimes.co.jp reports.

Japan: Aeon fares poorly
Operating profit at Aeon dropped 17.5% to ¥141.3bn from the previous year as its mainstay supermarket operations slumped, japantimes.co.jp reports.

China: Dairy Farm invests in Yonghui Superstores

Dairy Farm International Holdings Ltd completes its investment to acquire a 19.99% interest in Yonghui Superstores Co., Ltd by subscription of 813,100,468 new shares in Yonghui Superstores at a price of 7 Yuan per share, for a total consideration of 5.69 bln Yuan, Reuters reports.

Rewe committed to Russia
German retailer Rewe wants to expand in Russia despite the decline of the rouble, Austrian newspaper Wirtschaftsblatt on Friday quoted the head of the group's international operations as saying. "We don't feel the sanctions, we want to grow further there," the company said. Cleared of foreign currency effects, Rewe's international business grew around 4.9% in 2014, Wirtschaftsblatt said.

French Cnova going from strength to strength

Cnova, the e-commerce branch of Groupe Casino, has, like its rival Carrefour, posted strong first-quarter figures, esmmagazine.com reports. The 17.8-per-cent rise in Q1 turnover is all the more remarkable when the difficult economic situation in Brazil is taken into account, as the South American nation, is, as LSA states, its “principal market.” Its sales for the first three months of 2015 were €915.5mn.

X5 Retail Group Q1 retail sales up 26%

X5 Retail Group N.V. reported that retail sales for the first quarter grew 26.5% to RUR 182.05bn from last year's RUR 143.90bn, nasdaq.com reports. Like-for-like sales also improved 17.1% for the quarter. The company noted that higher food inflation in the first quarter drove average customer spends across all formats.

Maxima – largest employer in Latvia in 2014

The largest employer in Latvia in 2014 was supermarket chain Maxima Latvija, which employed approximately 9,150 people, reports LETA, according to information from the State Revenue Service.

Magnit cooperates with leading Russian media company

CTC Media, a leading Russian media company, and the country's leading retail chain Magnit announced the start of cooperation on the launch of a new customer loyalty program under the brand of the "Kukhnya" (Kitchen) series, yahoo.com reports. The project will be one of the widest-scale examples of the use of a TV brand in a Russian retail network.

Retailers urged to target older shoppers
Retailers should stop wasting so much time trying to win over millennials because they’re often broke. Instead, they should target older shoppers with more money to spend, a report by Forrester Research Inc. shows. (more at esmmagazine.com)

Italian Esselunga sees slight growth in 2014 sales
Italian retailer Esselunga Group closed 2014 with sales of €7.01bn (+0.8% compared to 2013), despite a 1.6% deflation of retail prices and a declining market, esmmagazine.com reports. In terms of financial results, the Esselunga Group achieved an EBITDA of +3.2% y/y; an operating result amounting to +2% y/y and a net profit of €212mn (€210mn in 2013). The price reductions were once again central to Esselunga’s strategy, rewarding the company with customer growth of 8.5%.

Italy: Lidl offers free shopping for 20 years
Lidl Italia has launched a new competition, in which the winner will receive €50 worth of free shopping for 20 years, esmmagazine.com reports. Customers need to retain the receipt and register their data on the retailer’s website. Once they complete this, a shopping cart full of groceries will appear on their computer screen. The task is to guess the value of all the products in the cart, or at least to come as close as possible.

SA: Pick n Pay heads for biggest gain in year
Pick n Pay Stores headed for its biggest gain in a year in Johannesburg trading after the grocer said financial 2015 earnings per share rose as much as 50%, iol.co.za reports. The retailer will publish detailed financial figures on April 21. But the company forecast sales growth of about 6%, at least three times slower than its projected growth in headline earnings.