Mike Ashley’s , which has attracted criticism from politicians and investors over working conditions and its approach to business, has announced plans to rebrand itself as Frasers Group. The retail group, which has a market value of £1.8bn, said it was seeking to elevate its image beyond the sportswear through which the billionaire chief executive made his fortune. Shareholders will vote on the name change at a general meeting in London on 16 December. The company requires 75% of the votes cast at the meeting to change the name, but Ashley owns 65% of the shares. The unusual move for a FTSE 250 company comes after Ashley led a year-long buying spree of struggling retailers, most notably House of Fraser in a £90m deal. Other retailers bought in the last 18 months by Sports Direct include Evans Cycles, Sofa.com and Game Digital.
Hopes on the high street of a pick-up in business during the pivotal Christmas period have been boosted by the latest retail health check from the CBI. In its monthly distributive trades survey, the employers’ organisation said the broadly unchanged level of activity in November had broken a six-month-long streak of falling sales. The peak Christmas shopping season starts with this week’s Black Friday offers, and the CBI said the stabilisation reported in its survey of 52 retailers provided some reasons for cautious optimism. Anna Leach, the CBI’s deputy chief economist, said: “Retailers are entering the festive season with a bit of hope that sales will head up, with the strongest expectations in half a year. Actual sales have also stabilised and have nudged above average for the time of year. And employment has stopped falling after three years of decline. But Brexit uncertainty continues to weigh on investment plans for the year ahead, which remain weak.
The world’s use of coal-fired electricity is on track for its biggest annual fall on record this year after more than four decades of near-uninterrupted growth that has stoked the global climate crisis. Data shows that coal-fired electricity is expected to fall by 3% in 2019, or more than the combined coal generation in Germany, Spain and the UK last year and could help stall the world’s rising carbon emissions this year. The steepest global slump on record is likely to emerge in 2019 as India’s reliance on coal power falls for the first time in at least three decades this year, and China’s coal power demand plateaus.
