Retail

Bloomberg Nestle SA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Schneider keeps cutting the sugar and fat. The question is what he’ll add to spur growth at the world’s biggest food company. In the CEO’s second-biggest disposal, the Swiss company sold its US ice cream business to a joint venture with private equity firm PAI Partners for $4 billion. That adds the ...

Bloomberg A growing number of sellers on Amazon.com Inc’s platform are finding how painful it can be when Amazon’s absolute power over their small businesses meets a bureaucratic US government system not built for the 21st century. The issue involves trademarks filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), a federal agency meant to ensure brands big and small ...

Bloomberg Ted Baker Plc’s top management quit and the UK fashion chain suspended its dividend, triggering a plunge in the shares to the lowest since 2003. The power vacuum leaves Ted Baker floundering as it tries to contain the fallout from allegations against its founder, Ray Kelvin, and the overstatement of unsold goods. The shares fell as much as 36% ...

Bloomberg Hudson’s Bay Co. Chairman Richard Baker’s plans to take the Canadian retailer private were dealt a setback as a prominent shareholder advisory firm came out against the deal. Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. urged investors to vote against Baker and his partners’ plans to take the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue private for C$1.9 billion ($1.4 billion). The advisory firm ...

Bloomberg Tesco Plc analysts see the potential for a special dividend after the UK supermarket chain confirmed it’s carrying out a strategic review of its operations in Thailand and Malaysia. The Asian assets could be worth as much as 9.5 billion pounds, which would hypothetically equate to a special dividend of up to 100 pence a share when adjusting for ...

Bloomberg Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, Tesco Plc, is considering the sale of its supermarket businesses in Thailand and Malaysia. The UK company is carrying out a strategic review of the businesses after receiving what it called inbound interest, according to a statement. The deal could value the operations at as much as $9 billion, Dow Jones reported earlier, citing people familiar ...

Bloomberg A special committee at Hudson’s Bay Co. rejected an offer by private-equity firm Catalyst Capital Group Inc. that values the Canadian retailer at more than $1.5 billion, giving the upper hand to a lower bid by the company’s chairman. The offer by Catalyst is “not reasonably capable of being consummated,” the committee said in a statement. Catalyst’s proposal of ...

Bloomberg Philippine food maker Monde Nissin Corp. is weighing options including a potential minority stake sale for Quorn Foods, a British producer of meat substitutes, people with knowledge of the matter said. Monde Nissin, which makes the best-selling “Lucky Me!” instant noodles in the Philippines, is working with an adviser to look for an equity investor in Quorn, said the ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s two biggest mobile-phone companies have for years been under pressure to lower data prices for their poorest customers, and the country’s antitrust regulator is running out of patience. Vodacom Group Ltd. and MTN Group Ltd. must agree to reduce tariffs by a further 30% to 50% within two months or face sanctions for being too dominant, the ...

Bloomberg When Starbucks Corp. took its American playbook to China two decades ago, that included a controversial chapter: grow extra fast and cannibalise your own stores’ sales. After snagging enviable 5% growth in the key country in the latest quarter, the coffee giant warned again that its China comparable sales could rise as little as 1% this fiscal year. The ...