Retail

Bloomberg Signet Jewelers Ltd, the owner of jewellery chains Jared and Kay, gave another sign the US jewellery industry is past the worst of it, with preliminary comparable sales turning positive in August following a challenging start to the summer. Shares rose. After reporting a 31.3% decline in same-store sales in the second quarter ended on August 1, the company …

Bloomberg Neiman Marcus Group won court permission to leave behind the debts and drama that pushed it into bankruptcy, just a day after its harshest critic was arrested on federal charges stemming from the case. A bankruptcy judge in Houston approved a plan that hands ownership to creditors in return for forgiving about $4 billion of Neiman’s $5.5 billion in …

Bloomberg Investors searching for any hints that a retail recovery is underway got a glimmer of hope, with struggling department-store operator Macy’s Inc inching back to normalcy. The department store chain is still losing money as sales remain well below pre-pandemic levels, but CEO Jeff Gennette said demand is picking up across all of its brands. Its adjusted net loss …

Bloomberg Arla Foods amba, one of Europe’s top milk producers, reported a 34% jump in profit in the first half of the year as consumers stockpiled products including butter in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic sparked increased dairy consumption in homes, which helped offset declines in the food service sector, according to Arla’s chief executive officer, Peder …

Bloomberg Chinese consumers are back to binging on luxury handbags, cosmetics and cars. But this shopping enthusiasm is not extending to mass consumption in sporting goods and restaurants. An uneven recovery is under way in China as the world’s biggest consumer market also becomes one of the first nations to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic that continues to ravage the …

Bloomberg Whole Foods Market opened a location in Brooklyn that it’s calling a store — except shoppers won’t be welcome to walk the aisles. Instead, the Amazon.com Inc-owned organic grocer will use the facility, located in the New York borough’s Sunset Park neighbourhood, as a warehouse to fulfill online grocery orders, the company said in a blog post. Amazon bought …

Bloomberg Pret a Manger Ltd cut 2,800 jobs in UK shops, about a third of its store employees there, in the latest sign that the pandemic is hurting the retail industry. Sales at British stores are down about 60% from a year earlier and are now roughly the same level as in August 2010, Pret said in a statement. A …

Bloomberg Walmart Inc’s answer to Amazon Prime finally has a launch date. The new subscription programme, dubbed Walmart+, will be available from September 15, the world’s largest retailer said in a statement. The program costs $98 a year, a discount to rival Amazon’s $119 annual Prime membership, and includes unlimited free delivery — including on groceries — plus gasoline discounts. …

Bloomberg JC Penney Co’s lenders are preparing to take ownership of the retailer as talks with potential outside buyers reach an impasse, an attorney for the company said in a bankruptcy court hearing. “We’ve hit a stalemate,” the attorney, Joshua Sussberg of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, said in the hearing. “Our lenders will no longer be held hostage” by outside …

Bloomberg An upscale Miami-area shopping mall is moving to evict Saks Fifth Avenue, saying the retailer hasn’t paid rent since March 16 and owes about $1.9 million. Saks told its landlord, Bal Harbour Shops LLC, in August that it couldn’t make lease payments on its three-level retail store due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a lawsuit …