The Government has taken the rare move of fast-tracking a full investigation into BHS’s former directors as Sir Philip Green yesterday agreed to appear before MPs in return for saving his wife’s blushes. (The Telegraph)

Sajid Javid, business secretary, instructed the Insolvency Service to consider the extent to which the conduct of the BHS directors led to its collapse into insolvency last week, putting 11,000 jobs at risk (The Guardian). Javid told the House of Commons on Tuesday that he had ordered the investigation by the Insolvency Service because of “concerns” about the way the business had been run. (The Financial Times £)

Sports Direct has sold nearly £12.5m of shares in rival JD Sports, as it looks at potentially buying collapsed high street chain BHS (The Guardian). While Marks & Spencer is expected to be the biggest winner from the collapse of BHS as its older clothing shoppers switch allegiance to the high street grande dame. (The Guardian)

Grieving South Korean families will sue Reckitt Benckiser after the British maker of Nurofen and Durex apologised for the deaths of scores of people caused by toxic humidifiers. (The Times £)

Amazon is believed to be planning to start delivering fresh food in the UK this month, stepping up the pressure on traditional supermarkets. The online retailer is understood to have been testing fresh food deliveries from its depot in east London and to have asked suppliers to begin deliveries in the next few weeks. (The Guardian)

Shoppers tired of waiting around at home for online orders are being lured back to supermarkets offering services that let them pick up their wares from car parks. Sainsbury’s is hoping to win over time-pressed shoppers by doubling its Click & Collect sites after seeing a surge in demand. (The Daily Mail)

Whitbread has bought a 49 per cent stake in the owner of sandwich and salad chain Pure for £6.8m. The cafe and hotel giant, which owns Costa Coffee and Premier Inn, said it was following the trend towards healthy eating. (The Daily Mail) The deal is part of a new strategy to expand the business and tap into fresh areas of growth. (The Telegraph)

Shoppers have benefited from three successive years of falling prices as retailers have resorted to discounting to win sales on a fiercely competitive high street. Overall shop prices – including both food and non-food – fell by 1.7% in April compared with a year earlier. That was the same rate of deflation as in March, according to the BRC-Nielsen shop price index. (The Guardian)

The Co-operative Group has shed around 100 former Somerfield properties that remained a hangover of its £1.6bn disastrous takeover. The mutual announced it has offloaded 36 trading shops and an additional 60 empty stores, offices and garages to restructuring firm Hilco. (The Telegraph)

Just Eat sought to dispel recent scepticism over its growth prospects yesterday by delivering a 41 per cent surge in underlying orders in the first quarter and raising its forecast for full-year results. (The Times £) Just Eat shares topped the FTSE 250 leader board in afternoon trading, with its shares up 7.5%, or 28.8p to 412.3p. (The Daily Mail)

Coty, the US cosmetics group with ambitions to expand rapidly, has sharply increased its estimate of cost savings from the beauty assets acquired from Procter & Gamble last year in a transaction valued at $12.5bn. (The Financial Times £)

A recent bout of poor weather has damaged South America’s corn and soyabean crops, and this has provided a rare reason for optimism at some of the world’s largest traders of food after ADM, Bunge and Cargill have all been hit by bumper harvests and the slowdown in emerging markets. (The Financial Times £)

Topics