John Lewis has shed 3,800 jobs over the past year, as it races to cut costs across its stores. This coincided with the company saving around £26m in employment costs over the year. (Telegraph £)
An online marketplace which had been considered a prime candidate to float on the London stock market has hired bankers to pursue a sale. Sky News has learnt that Fruugo, which counts the former Marks & Spencer chairman Lord Rose of Monewden among its shareholders, is working with DC Advisory on options for its future. (Sky News)
Spinneys, the high-end grocer that operates the Waitrose brand in the Gulf, rose as much as 10% on its first day of trading on Thursday — the latest major private company to go public in Dubai and part of what bankers and investors hope could be a wave of such listings. (Financial Times £)
Misfits is one of a growing number of “functional” brands that aim to increase consumers’ intake of protein. Consumers seem to be on board, as are investors — Misfits has raised £12 million of venture capital and in 2021 launched in the US, which is now its biggest market with 80% of sales. (The Times £)
Britain’s biggest retailer isn’t British and isn’t a retailer – Action, a Dutch discount store chain majority owned by 3i, the UK-listed private equity fund, is bigger by implied market cap than Tesco. “Action disproves the argument that for London-listed companies, New York valuations are out of reach. So long as the business isn’t managed from the UK, has no operations in the UK, and is marked once a quarter inside a complicated wrapper that just happens to be listed in the UK, anything’s possible.” (Financial Times £)
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