In brief: The Saturday papers
Baugur looking at Karen Millen stake, John Lewis launches credit card. Retail news from the UK Saturday press.
[b]The Times[/b]
Baugur is in talks to buy a stake in Karen Millen and Whistles, the high street chains controlled by Kevin Stanford. Talks are understood to have been under way for several weeks but a deal is not expected to be concluded for at least a month. The Icelandic group, which bought toy store Hamleys last year, is keen to buy more high street clothing chains to add to Oasis. Stanford, who owns 60 per cent of the Karen Millen group, insisted that he had no plans to sell his stake. A group of Icelandic investors own the remaining shares.
MFI has appointed 35-year-old corporate restructuring specialist Shaun O’Callaghan to its board, but insisted the move did not point to any plan to demerge its fast-growing builders’ merchant business. The furniture retailer said Howden Joinery, which supplies small builders, remained core to the group’s operations. Some retail analysts questioned why O’Callaghan, who helped develop KPMG’s corporate restructuring practice before joining MFI just three months ago, had been promoted to the board so rapidly.
John Lewis has announced the launch of a ‘Partnership’ credit card in an attempt to piggy-back onto the UK credit card market using its million-strong store card customer base. The high street retailer, which owns 26 department stores and the Waitrose supermarket chain, vowed to stay on the right side of the Office of Fair Trading, having watched the consumer watchdog pull up rival retailers on the launch of their credit cards.
[b]The Guardian[/b]
[img r]AustinReedRegentStreetStore1.jpg[/img]Austin Reed shares gained 7p to 146p on Friday after Dawnay Day, the corporate finance boutique, announced that it had increased its stake in the troubled clothing retailer to almost 10 per cent. Shares were given further momentum by speculation that Dawnay Day is already looking to add to its holding, perhaps by as much as another 10 per cent. Market sources say Dawnay Day has approached several of Austin Reed’s biggest shareholders, which include Isis, Fidelity and Shami Ahmed, the Joe Bloggs jeans entrepreneur, to see if they would be prepared to sell a chunk of their holdings.
[b]The Financial Times[/b]
Friends of new Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King say he thinks that Sainsbury’s has become an organisation tuned to meeting the targets put in place by Sir Peter Davis, and has made the critical mistake of losing touch with its customers. He is understood to be dismissive of the current regime’s insistence on blaming the poor sales performance on the business transformation programme it has been putting in place. In an effort to send a strong message to his troops, Mr King intends to spend Monday morning visiting Sainsbury’s stores. He will not turn up at the group’s fancy glass-walled head office at London’s Holborn Circus until lunchtime.
