The Guardian and other papers follow up news in Monday’s edition of The Times on Marks & Spencer’s plan to open 20 large stores and create 3,400 jobs in a bid to rejuvenate its presence on the high street after bumper Christmas trading.
The retailer said eight ‘full-line’ shops selling food, clothing and homeware will open in shopping centres, including the Bullring in Birmingham and the Trafford Centre in Manchester, as well as in retail parks and high streets (Daily Mail).
The planned “destination” branches will have wider aisles and market-style fresh food sections (Daily Telegraph).
Overall it plans to reduce the number of full stores offering food, clothing and home sales from 247 to 180 by 2026, and increase its Simply Food outlets by 104 to 420 (Financial Times £).
M&S is leading Britain’s high street revival as online retailers careen into crisis, says an opinion piece in the Telegraph. “The success of traditional retailers proves the ‘death of the high street’ is a myth,” the paper writes.
An opinion column in the Financial Times (£) asks: ‘Is this the high street’s last stand?’ The paper writes, “bricks and mortar retail has shown signs of a revival but hailing the triumph of square footage over pixels would be wishful thinking.”
UK luxury food retailer Fortnum & Mason returned to profit last year as the end of pandemic restrictions sent shoppers back to its stores and online sales grew (Financial Times £).
Profits at the royal family’s favourite grocer grew to £6.1m in the 52 weeks to July 10, compared with a £2.7m loss the year before, following a “notable return of domestic customers to physical stores” (The Times £).
Sales hit £187m, up from £132m in the same period a year earlier (Daily Mail).
The number of businesses falling into administration rose by almost half last year as inflation delivered a “body blow” to companies seeking to recover from the pandemic (The Times £).
The governor of the Bank of England has said there could be a “rapid” fall in inflation in Britain amid a drop in global energy prices over recent weeks but warned that a shortage of workers could still pose major risks amid the cost of living crisis (The Guardian).
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the European Commission’s vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, have committed to further talks to resolve the dispute over Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland (The Guardian).
The sale by the world’s largest tobacco company of a shareholding in a pharmaceutical firm that developed a Covid vaccine has been welcomed by the World Health Organization. Philip Morris International sold its stake in Medicago, a Canadian drugs company, to Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, a Japanese company and the majority shareholder (The Times £).
The Lex column in the Financial Times (£) looks at the regulatory challenges facing the proposed JV between Dutch feed supplier ForFarmers and UK ‘chicken king’ Ranjit Boparan.
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