There is plenty to chew over in the papers this week despite the summer season being in full flow. The Sunday Times has an in-depth article putting the spotlight on the Morrisons and Ocado deal from last week. In the piece, headline “Ocado keeps Morrisons sweet after a visit from 800lb gorilla”, retail correspondent Oliver Shah reports that the online grocer rewrote its supermarket deal after Amazon came calling. Apparently Morrisons got almost all the things it asked for in the bargaining, Shah writes.
The Mail on Sunday says Morrisons closed its head office yesterday to send 1,000 staff into stores to help with an expected summer rush of customers during the heatwave.
The Telegraph, The Mail and The Independent carry research from The Share Centre showing supermarket sales dipped below £100bn in the second quarter for the first time since 2010 as a result price war with discounters Aldi and Lidl continued to eat away at the money they made from shoppers.
The Financial Times looks ahead to Walmart’s Q2 results on Thursday, with two key areas of focus: domestic sales growth and the online business following the Jet acquisition announced last week. Analysts are expecting a 1% rise in same-store sales growth for the quarter.
Britain’s biggest retailers are grappling with a £6bn jump in their pension scheme deficits, which threatens to dwarf industry profits for the year, The Telegraph writes. The multi-billion pension liabilities at major retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer are expected to have ballooned by almost 30% since the start of the year following the slump in sterling after the EU referendum and the Bank of England’s move to slash interest rates.
There has been a ‘kissathon’ protest outside a Sainsbury’s store in London with about 200 people taking part after a gay couple were asked to leave the shop by a security guard for holding hands (The Guardian).
The Telegraph also reports on potential bad news for SABMiller boss Alan Clark as he faces a reduction in his windfall from the sale to AB InBev as a result of the Brexit vote. The paper says potential gains in the brewer’s share price post-Brexit have been capped by the deal.
Sales surged at the takeaway sushi chain Itsu following its expansion outside London but the ambitious store opening plan ate into profits, The Sunday Times writes.
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