All articles by Robert Clark – Page 3
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NewsIn Focus: Matalan
The pending departure of Alistair McGeorge puts the spotlight on a pioneer of value retailing in the UK. Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s recently updated profile addresses whether Matalan, celebrating its silver jubilee, has reached maturity.
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NewsIn Focus: Grabal Alok (UK)
Grabal Alok (UK) might not mean much to many UK market-watchers, but it is the resting place of two value clothing format pioneers - QS and Bewise - with other names from retail history thrown in for good measure.
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NewsIn Focus: Findel
For years Findel was a well-respected, profitable home shopping and educational supplies business. Group sales hit £300m in 2002, peaking at close to £650m six years later.
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NewsIn focus: Original Factory Shop
The origin of The Original Factory Shop was selling overruns and seconds produced by Peter Black Holdings, which manufactured a wide range of own-label footwear, handbags, cosmetics, etc, mainly for M&S.
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NewsIn Focus: Supergroup
There have been two retail IPOs to date this year, Ocado and SuperGroup. Their fortunes in share price terms have so far gone in opposite directions, with Ocado’s floundering, and SuperGroup’s price doubling.
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NewsIn Focus: Net-a-Porter
Surely for those affluent ladies it is largely about service in the shops in Bond Street or upmarket department stores?
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NewsIn Focus: American Golf Discount Centre
American Golf Discount Centre is the UK’s largest specialist golf retailer, the name inherited when Howard and Robert Bilton acquired their first retail store, having previously traded from a garden shed at their golf club.
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NewsIn Focus: Mole Valley Farmers
Rural retailing generally receives little publicity but the spotlight flickered over it recently with the news that the largest player, Mole Valley Farmers, had acquired the 11-store farming supplies business CWG.
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NewsIn Focus: L Rowland
L Rowland & Company (Retail) Ltd neither slips easily off the tongue nor sparks recognition as being among Britain’s top 50 or so largest retailers. Yet Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s profile update shows in the year to January Rowland hit sales of £526.5m as the UK’s third largest pharmacist - behind Boots and Lloydspharmacy, but ahead of the Co-op.
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NewsIn focus: Ocado
Now that the Ocado IPO dust has settled what, if any, are the lingering problem areas?
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NewsIn Focus: Steinhoff
Furniture is retail’s hardest hit sector in a recession. High-profile names such as MFI, Land of Leather and The Pier have disappeared, ScS went into administration but survived and all have struggled. But one group seems to have bucked the trend, at least in turning itself around from four years ...
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NewsIn Focus: 99p Stores
The demise of Woolworths keeps reverberating around the retail trade. The single-price stores benefited on two counts: picking up ex-Woolworths customers and acquiring former Woolworths stores in good locations at favourable rates.
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NewsIn focus: Sainsbury’s
Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s recent Sainsbury’s profile update highlights this issue for a business that has arguably been buying sales growth and market share at the expense of fully restoring operating margins
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NewsIn Focus: Monsoon
Clothing and accessories retailer Monsoon has been caught in a domestic storm as UK profits have suffered while management is focused on creating a global brand.
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NewsIn Focus: B&M Bargains
B&M is the chain more than any other that our contacts have remarked that they have begun to notice, but about which they know very little.
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AnalysisTop 50 retailers: Retail’s premier league
It’s 18 months since Retail Week’s last look at the UK’s top retailers by sales and margins and much has changed in that time. Retail Knowledge Bank senior partner Robert Clark reports
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