Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) has announced that its chief executive, Mike Coupe, will retire in May after six years in charge of the UK’s second largest supermarket chain. The 59-year-old will be succeeded by the grocer’s retail and operations director, Simon Roberts. Coupe has faced questions about his future since April, when the competition regulator blocked Sainsbury’s attempt to take over its Walmart-owned rival Asda for £7.3bn. Coupe was the architect of that deal and Sainsbury’s share price has fallen 22% over the past year. Roberts, a former managing director of the health and beauty retailer Boots, joined Sainsbury’s in 2017, with oversight of the logistics systems used by the company’s 1,400 stores as well as online operations. Coupe was appointed as head of the supermarket in 2014. He oversaw the £1.4bn acquisition of the catalogue retailer Argos in 2016 but Sainsbury’s share price has fallen by more than 30% from the date he took over. Coupe will also be remembered for his “hot mic” rendition of the Broadway musical number We’re in the Money on the day he announced the Asda deal. The merger was ultimately vetoed by regulators over fears that a supermarket with a combined market share of more than 31% would reduce choice for customers.
The housebuilder Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) has pledged to pay out £1bn to shareholders over the next two years, almost doubling the planned financial award to its investors. The company has ridden the booming British property market since the financial crisis, with house prices rising particularly in London and south-east England, its main sources of revenue. Those price rises came despite the political uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote. Analysts said the new returns to shareholders reflected renewed certainty after the Conservative party’s general election victory, as well as confidence in the returns from 20 separate construction sites that it has secured. Under the proposals revealed on Wednesday Berkeley said it will distribute about £500m in March through a share issue and buyback, followed by another £500m in March 2021. That represents an increase from the £545m of returns due to be made by the end of September 2021.
The struggling fashion retailer Ted Baker (TED) has admitted that an accounting error was twice as big as initially thought, leaving it with a £58m hole in its balance sheet. Ted Baker appointed accountants from Deloitte last month to investigate after the company found that it had overestimated the value of its stock. The retailer’s preliminary investigations suggested it had overestimated the value of the stock it held at 26 January 2019 by between £20m and £25m but that figure has now more than doubled. The results of the accounting investigation come after Ted Baker’s banks appointed advisers to carry out a business review amid concerns that its weak financial position could force it to look for a cash injection. A £58m overstatement would be larger than the London Stock Exchange-listed company’s annual profits before tax for the year to 31 January 2019 of £50.9m.
