Retail

BANGKOK / Reuters In a downtown Bangkok mall, ripped jeans and mirror sunglasses aimed at fast-fashion teens show how Thai retailers are getting ready for the next big thing — a government stimulus package they’re betting will revive sales after years of stagnation. The goods are on sale in US brand Aeropostale Inc’s first Thai store, recently opened in a ...

HELSINKI / Reuters Finland’s largest discount store chain Tokmanni Group, majority owned by buyout house Nordic Capital, said it is planning a possible stock market flotation. Tokmanni, with 156 stores, had sales of 755 million euros ($859 million) and an underlying operating profit margin of 5.8 percent last year. Sources said last year a float could value the company at ...

HELSINKI / Reuters Loss-making Finnish retailer Stockmann announced the surprise departure of its chief executive, after 16 months in the job, raising questions over the company’s ongoing restructuring. Per Thelin, who will leave the company immediately, was recruited in 2014 to revive the department store and fashion chain group after its earnings fell due to a recession in Finland and ...

ZURICH / Reuters For much of its 125 years selling luxury goods, Switzerland’s family-run emporium Bongenie Grieder has been the kind of place where affluent shoppers felt at ease and staff were confident they had a job for life. Then came January 2015’s ‘franc shock’ when the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) dramatic decision to lift a cap against the euro ...

Reuters Department store operator Hudson’s Bay Co reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly profit as expenses soared and sales at established Saks Fifth Avenue stores dropped. The company’s cost of sales rose 74 percent in the fourth quarter ended January 30, while its selling, general and administrative expenses almost doubled. Saks Fifth Avenue, the company’s luxury chain, reported a 1.2 percent drop ...

New York / AFP Amazon has been making moves over the past few months to position itself as a force in the ready-to-wear fashion world. The Seattle-based online retail titan has already revolutionised how consumers shop and has been selling clothes for more than a decade. In 2006, it bought the site Shopbop and snapped up online footwear go-to Zappos ...

Bloomberg Not every milestone is worth celebrating. For the first time ever — or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago — Walmart’s revenues shrank from the year before, according to its recently released annual financial filing. Walmart is clearly having trouble adapting its gigantic stores to the internet age. To be sure, it is a ...

FRANKFURT / Reuters Amazon is in talks with a consortium of German carmakers about taking a stake in high-definition digital mapping company HERE, two auto industry sources familiar with the matter said. Last August, BMW, Audi and Mercedes agreed to pay 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) to buy Nokia’s mapping business as part of plans to develop self-driving cars. Since ...

Bloomberg Home Retail Group Plc said its board will unanimously recommend J Sainsbury Plc’s 1.4 billion-pound ($2 billion) bid after South African retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV withdrew from the battle to acquire the Argos owner. The announcement effectively ends a protracted takeover saga that began on January 5 when Sainsbury first disclosed its interest. After weeks of wrangling over ...

Bloomberg Kenya Airways, the east African country’s struggling national airline, is to cut up to 600 jobs as part of a bid to achieve $200 million in savings, the airline. The reductions at the airline, partly owned by the government as well as Air France KLM, could see around 15 percent of the 4,000-strong workforce cut. As part of efforts ...