The chief executive of Boots is leaving his role after six years, as attempts by owner Walgreens Boots Alliance to list or sell the UK pharmacy chain have stalled (Financial Times £). The chief executive of Boots has quit Britain’s biggest pharmacy chain after its US owners shelved plans for a multibillion-pound sale for the second time (Telegraph £).
Sebastian James is to become the new group chief executive of Veonet, which is owned by the private equity firm PAI Partners and Canada’s Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. He will leave Boots in November and will join Veonet soon afterwards (Sky News). The US owner of Boots is looking for a new chief executive after its boss stood down to run one of Europe’s largest eye clinics. (Daily Mail). The outgoing boss of Boots is set to run Veonet, one of Europe’s largest chains of ophthalmology clinics and the owner of SpaMedica in Britain (The Times £).
A leading shareholder of Britvic has called on Carlsberg to improve the terms of its takeover bid for the soft drinks group (The Times £). Aviva, which is a top ten shareholder in Britvic, the maker of Robinsons soft drinks, said there would be benefits to a merger of the companies, but that the bid price was too low (Daily Mail).
Asda bosses insisted they are building a ‘bigger and better’ supermarket as they published figures showing it is back in the black despite haemorrhaging market share. (Daily Mail)
Can Asda’s new ‘cut-throat’ owners succeed where the Issa brothers failed? New majority owner must overcome perception as a ‘pantomime villain’ to reverse supermarket’s decline. (Telegraph £)
Marks & Spencer has won back middle England’s hearts with its refreshed fashion and food ranges after decades of failed attempts, but there is one piece in the retailers’ turnaround puzzle left to solve: its online grocery partnership with Ocado. (The Times £)
How M&S has finally fixed its fashion - for every age group. The Mail’s Ruth Sutherland visits HQ to find out what’s changed behind the scenes and what it means for investors. (Daily Mail £)
English wine is an industry in ferment. Investment in new and existing vineyards is accelerating, businesses have started changing hands, high-net-worth individuals are sitting on big stakes and its sparkling wines are being exported worldwide. (The Times £)
How English wine came of age – as a changing climate makes southern counties ripe for viticulture, the largest producers are attracting investment from overseas. The rapidly warming climate has made England’s southern counties a hunting ground for overseas producers looking to de-risk as extreme weather and disease batter their vineyards further south. (Financial Times £)
Lawyers acting on behalf of two people who fell ill in an E. coli outbreak in the UK have started legal action against two leading supermarkets. Law firm Fieldfisher said on Friday it had issued letters of claim for breach of the Consumer Protection Act over own-brand sandwiches purchased in Tesco and Asda. (BBC)
Sales of olive oil have plunged in its Mediterranean heartland as Spaniards and Italians shunned their most beloved culinary ingredient following steep price rises. (Financial Times £)
Cocoa prices fell for the seventh day in a row, their worst run in almost two years, as hopes rose that better weather in the key African growing region would help crops recover in the upcoming growing season. (The Times £)
The former boss of Mothercare is spearheading a daring rescue bid for what remains of The Body Shop’s stricken high street operations. (Telegraph £)
Taxing methane-belching cows certainly puts the wind up farmers. Their opposition recently forced New Zealand to backtrack on plans to tax ruminants’ emissions. Now Denmark has reached agreement on a similar levy. It is dubbed a “terrifying experiment” by farmers’ organisation Bæredygtigt Landbrug. (Financial Times £)
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