Quorn is at the centre of a £500m takeover battle between frozen food giants Nomad and McCain, according to weekend reports.
The Sunday Telegraph said Nomad and McCain are the two most likely victors in the ensuing bid battle for the company. Quorn has been put up for sale by its private equity owner, Exponent, and formal information packages are expected to be sent out to prospective bidders next week.
Meanwhile, Quorn has increased its production capacity by 50pc to meet the increasing global demand for non-meat foods. Sales are up by 7% in the past six months, as it increased its international presence to supply 16 countries around the world. Sales in the lucrative US market grew by 30% last year, after the firm increased its product lines in a number of major US retailers including Walmart. (The Telegraph)
The Financial Times (£) looks at Tesco’s exit from South Korea, which was confirmed this morning, and how it made a success of Homeplus. “Shoppers at many of Tesco’s Homeplus stores in South Korea can head to the attached “cultural centre” to receive lessons in cooking or English,” the FT writes. “Such features show a willingness to adapt to the local market that helped Tesco become the only foreign supermarket chain to succeed in South Korea, where Homeplus is the second-biggest company in the industry by sales.”
Morrisons is expected to receive between £30m and £50m from the sale of its convenience stores, according to reports, the supermarket’s management team spent this weekend in intense negotiations with Greybull Capital, the investment firm which rescued Monarch Airlines last year; in an effort to seal a deal before it updates the City on a slump in profits on Thursday. (The Telegraph)
Staff at Tesco’s former music streaming service Blinkbox are owed £10 million because its new owner has failed to honour a deal struck with the grocery giant. Blinkbox was sold off earlier this year as part of efforts by new chief executive Dave Lewis to make the vast Tesco empire more efficient. The online music arm was bought by Australian company Guvera in January with a £1m discount to the price in exchange for a guarantee that staff would get enhanced redundancy payouts if the business failed. (The Daily Mail)
Thousands of farmers will descend on Brussels on Monday to protest about falling dairy and meat prices as European ministers hold an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis in the agriculture industry. An estimated 4,000 farmers, including some from Britain, plan to march through the centre of Brussels on Monday to highlight the pressure they are under from falling prices. (The Guardian)
Retailers might think that they have the best executives sitting in their boardrooms, but nine out of ten boards will be “past their sell-by date” in five years’ time, an industry report is warning. Steve Baggi, head of the retail practice at Green Park, which prepared the report for this week’s World Retail Congress in Rome, said that the retail industry had a “poor self-perception of talent management” compared with other sectors and “urgently needs to address the skills gap of its future leaders”. (The Times £)
The UK’s online retail market is large and growing. Its value increased 17 per cent in 2014 to £42bn, according to Euromonitor. But the growth of pure-play digital retailers is under threat as their marketplace becomes increasingly crowded. The big beasts of the UK high street have finally fought their way into the sector, meaning that digital retailing is no longer the preserve of digital businesses. (The Financial Times £)
The Guardian asks “Whatever happened to the reinvention of the UK high street?”. After all the misplaced ‘regeneration’ hype, it writes, do British high streets show any real signs of recovering their life and purpose? (The Guardian)
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