Retail

  Bloomberg J Sainsbury Plc will open Argos branches or collection points inside almost all of its stores, as the U.K. grocer detailed how it plans to integrate the catalog retailer it acquired last month. “Over time, we envisage that there won’t be a single Sainsbury’s shop, with the exception of some very small convenience shops, where you won’t either ...

AP Supervalu Inc. agreed to sell the Save-A-Lot grocery chain to Canada’s Onex Corp. for $1.37 billion in cash and will use the proceeds to repay debt. As part of the deal, Supervalu will provide services such as payroll and merchandising technology to Save-A-Lot for five years, the Minneapolis-based company said. The company expects to complete the deal by Jan. ...

  Bloomberg PepsiCo Inc. ramped up its pledge to reduce the number of sugary beverages it sells over the next decade as governments increasingly tax soft drinks and fruit juices in an attempt to reduce obesity and diabetes. At least two-thirds of the company’s beverage volume will have no more than 100 calories from added sugars per 12-ounce serving by ...

  Bloomberg Dutch food giant Unilever, reportedly caught up in a pricing war with a British supermarket chain, warned Thursday the falling pound will likely hike its prices in Britain. Releasing stagnant third-quarter figures, the huge multinational, which supplies popular brand names like Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, Knorr soups and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, acknowledged it was a “tough market” globally. There ...

  Bloomberg MTN Group Ltd., the South African wireless carrier with $1 billion stuck in Iran, agreed to make an investment of 20 million euros ($22 million) that will support Snapp.ir, the Islamic Republic’s first cab-hailing smartphone application. The funds “will allow us to quickly expand to other cities” than Tehran, Snapp Chief Executive Officer Shahram Shahkar said by e-mail ...

  Bloomberg Yum! Brands Inc, the US fast-food giant that’s spinning off its China unit, plans to add more outlets with the likelihood of tripling its presence to about 22,000 stores in Asia’s biggest economy. Yum China already has 7,300 restaurants in the country – five per million people – and has the potential to triple that in the long ...

  Bloomberg It is setting up to be a very merry Christmas for Toys “R” Us. Two quarters of strong sales will likely be followed by the brightest holiday season in years for the struggling toy retailer, which has spent more than a decade under private equity ownership. During that time it has mostly been cutting costs, closing stores — ...

  Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s increasing reliance on e-commerce to fuel sales comes at a time when Amazon.com Inc. is tightening its grip on the American consumer, making it a risky gambit. Wal-Mart told investors it would pull back on the number of new stores it was opening and instead invest some of that money into online operations. It’s a ...

  Bloomberg Improvements in Old Navy’s product selection brought a sales surge to Gap Inc.’s biggest chain last month — and the stock’s biggest rally in almost eight years. The brand’s same-store sales gained 4 percent in September, Gap said. Analysts had projected growth of less than 1 percent, according to Retail Metrics. The results helped offset an overall sales ...

  Bloomberg Future Group, which runs India’s largest chain of department stores, expects record growth in the current financial year as a favorable monsoon boosts agricultural output and rural incomes. The group, which controls four listed entities including Future Retail Ltd., is expecting to register 25 percent to 28 percent growth, Chief Executive Officer Kishore Biyani said in an interview ...