Mike Ashley has vowed that his troubled House Of Fraser chain will fight on as it faces the crucial festive period.The retail entrepreneur described reports that he was planning to shut most of the department store’s 53 shops after Christmas as ‘unbelievable’. The boss of said he was renewing leases and investing in the chain as he battles to revive its fortunes, having bought it out of administration for £90million last year. ‘It is totally incorrect to assume that there will be large numbers of store closures in the new year,’ a Sports Direct spokesman said.
Alison Rose will face a baptism of fire when she takes the top job at Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) next month. The 49-year-old, who is stepping up from the role of deputy chief executive at Natwest to chief executive of its owner, will immediately be faced with a court case over one of the longest running and most toxic disputes in the bank’s history. RBS is due to appear in the High Court in early November where it will face more awkward questions about its Global Restructuring Group (GRG) and its relationship with the Treasury.
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) is relaunching its largest womenswear label Per Una as it desperately tries to refresh its ailing fashion department. It has kicked off a major campaign to try to shift the perceptions that its clothes are dowdy and ‘too frilly’, the company said. It will also make a foray into ‘influencer marketing’ – paying social media celebrities to feature M&S clothes – to go alongside traditional print and billboard advertising. The move is part of the retailer’s plans to broaden its appeal to a younger, ‘family age’ customer, and the updated collection will be ‘the first thing you see when you walk into an M&S store’, the company said.
Shares in SIG (SHI) plummeted after the business warned that a deepening downturn in the UK and German construction markets would hit profits. The Sheffield-based business shed more than a fifth of its share value in early trading after it told investors that annual profits in its core business will be ‘significantly lower’ than previously predicted. The company has also separately announced that it has secured agreements to sell its air handling and building solutions divisions in two separate deals for more than £230 million in total.
De La Rue (DLAR) has finally appointed a chief executive – nearly two years after losing the contract to make Britain’s blue post-Brexit passports. Clive Vacher, hailed by the banknote printer as a turnaround specialist, joined yesterday at a tricky time for the business. After a French rival beat it to the passport deal in 2017, it announced a string of profit warnings. De La Rue is banking on Vacher, the 49-year-old former boss of Canada-listed electronic chip company Dynex Power, to turn around its fortunes.
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) is planning to cut up to 10,000 jobs as interim chief executive Noel Quinn seeks to slash costs and stamp his mark on the global banking group, according to reports. The Financial Times said the bank is considering a cull of more than 4% of its workforce, with the cuts falling most heavily on highly paid roles. Any job cuts implemented in this new round would come on top of the redundancies announced by the bank earlier in the year, when it said it will lay off about 4,000 people.
Bezant Resources (BZT) has struck a conditional deal to sell an 80% stake in its Mankayan copper and gold project in the Philippines to a private Singaporean firm. Mining And Minerals Industries Holdings (MMIH) will put up to £5million towards project funding. And due to a separate agreement MMIH had already made with a firm that is listed in Singapore, Bezant could also get £5.9million of shares in the public company.
300,000 fewer passengers flew with BA last month, taking the total down from 4.2m in September last year to 3.9m this time around. Pilots went on strike over pay on September 9 and 10, as well as lining up a third day on September 27 that was later cancelled. The strikes have cost more than £120million and BA’s parent company, International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG), has already warned full-year profits will be hit by the action. But despite September’s 8% fall, passenger numbers so far this year are up 1.2% to 36.2million. And IAG’s total passenger figures – incorporating airlines such as Iberia and Vueling – were up 0.6% in September and 4.9% so far this year, to 90.4m.
Sirius Minerals (SXX) lifted after chief executive Chris Fraser said the troubled Yorkshire fertiliser miner has cut 300 jobs and believes the company will have a good idea of alternative financing options by the end of this month.
Eddie Stobart’s major shareholder DBAY Advisors was given more time to decide if it wants to make an offer to take over the trucking group. It has until October 16 to decide if it wants to make a move on Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL), whose shares have been suspended since August after an accounting error was found.
Investors were unmoved after student accommodation provider Unite Group (UTG) sold two high-end properties in Coventry to Singapore group Mapletree Investments for £96million. The Callice Court and Millennium View buildings can house 1,127 students between them.
Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) had more success on the stock market. News that it has scheduled viewing times in November for prospective buyers to inspect a 20.08 carat blue diamond it recovered from its Cullinan mine last month sent shares surging 0.53p, to 6.83p by the close.
