Retail

BLOOMBERG Instacart named former chief financial and operating officer Ravi Gupta to its board of directors, formalising a move after the grocery technology company went public earlier this week. “There are new growth areas — Connected Stores, Instacart Health, AI — entire plethora of ways that the company’s going to innovate,” Gupta said in an interview ahead of the announcement. ...

BLOOMBERG Cainiao Network Technology Co, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is planning to file for its Hong Kong initial public offering as soon as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially making it among the first of the Chinese tech firm’s units to go public. The company is targeting to raise at least $1 ...

BLOOMBERG As Instacart started trading on the Nasdaq on Tuesday, investors weren’t betting on a grocery-delivery company. They’re betting on a data and advertising business. The company, best known for its army of gig-economy workers filling grocery orders, has spent years building up its ad division — a higher-margin operation that capitalises on a trove of shopping data. That evolution ...

BLOOMBERG H&M’s revenue growth unexpectedly ground to a halt as shoppers turned away from the Swedish retailer, which has been raising prices while rivals  offer bottom-dollar discounts. Sales growth was flat in constant currencies during the three months through August, missing analysts’ estimates. The low-cost fashion retailer has been allowing prices to creep up lately, according to RBC analyst Richard ...

BLOOMBERG Bright spaghetti-like strands jiggle across a conveyor belt at a manufacturing plant in Grenchen, Switzerland, before arching into a cutting machine that spits a shower of yellow pellets into an industrial-sized sack.  Nick Hayek, the 68-year-old chief executive officer of Swatch Group AG, reaches in and pulls out a handful. “Look, they’re still warm.” The pellets, made of a ...

BLOOMBERG Amazon.com Inc is targeting a logistics void left by Shopify Inc’s abrupt retreat from shipping services earlier this year, which created an opportunity for the online retailer to make money delivering products ordered on sites other than Amazon.com. The e-commerce giant is promoting Buy With Prime, which was introduced last year and offers online merchants fast delivery of customer ...

BLOOMBERG L’Occitane International SA halted trading in Hong Kong ahead of an announcement that may spell out details on the French skin-care company’s potential take-private plan. The firm said in August that its controlling shareholder was considering a possible deal to take the company private with a minimum possible offer of HK$26 ($3.31) per share. L’Occitane said at the time ...

BLOOMBERG Seven & i Holdings Co has finalised the sale of its Sogo & Seibu Co department store chain amid a strike by employees at the flagship shop in central Tokyo on concerns the deal may jeopardise their jobs. The sale to Fortress Investment Group will close at an enterprise value of about ¥220 billion ($1.5 billion), according to a ...

BLOOMBERG Marks & Spencer (M&S) Group Plc has launched a legal challenge against the UK government’s decision to reject a plan for a new store in Marble Arch, central London where the retailer has had a presence for nearly a century. The clothing and food retailer lost government backing in July for a proposal to demolish its flagship art deco ...

BLOOMBERG Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co’s global business head will become chief operating officer, as the retail giant grooms the next generation of leaders who might one day take the reins from founder Tadashi Yanai. Daisuke Tsukagoshi begins his new role from September 1, the Japanese company said in a statement. The appointment is part of strategy to strengthen management ...