Retail

Bloomberg South Africa’s largest clothing retailer sees a successful Covid-19 vaccination rollout as key to reopening the economy and adding new stores, helping to address the world’s highest unemployment rate. “If we get people vaccinated, the economy can normalise quickly,” Pepkor Holdings Ltd CEO Leon Lourens said in an interview. “If the economy normalises, we can create jobs.” The government …

Bloomberg US retail sales rose unexpectedly in August as a pickup in purchases across most categories more than offset weakness at auto dealers, showing resilient consumer demand for merchandise. The value of overall retail purchases climbed 0.7% last month following a downwardly revised 1.8% decrease in July, Commerce Department figures showed. Excluding autos, sales advanced 1.8% in August, the largest …

Bloomberg John Lewis Partnership Plc’s loss narrowed in the first half as the British retailer’s turnaround efforts started to pay off. The operator of the John Lewis department store and upmarket grocer Waitrose said the $40 million pretax loss came after taking almost 100 million pounds of exceptional costs related to store closures and redundancy payments. This is a significant …

Bloomberg The maker of On Running performance shoes priced its US initial public offering above a marketed range to raise $746 million. On Holding AG and some of its investors sold 31.1 million shares for $24 each, according to a statement confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News. The company had marketed the shares for $20 to $22 each. The …

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc boosted pay as it looks to hire 125,000 warehouse and shipping workers amid a tight US labour market. The e-commerce giant said starting wages for open jobs in logistics average $18 an hour, or 20% more than the $15-an-hour base pay the company set back in 2018, with signing bonuses of as much as $3,000 in some …

Bloomberg Customers at some Tesco Plc supermarkets will now be able to purchase products from brands like Coca-Cola and Heinz in reusable packaging to reduce plastic waste. In partnership with Loop, a reusable packaging platform launched by New Jersey-based recycling specialist TerraCycle Inc, Tesco was expected to roll out a trial in 10 supermarkets across the east of England from …

Bloomberg Walmart Inc made its green bond market debut with a $2 billion offering, the largest ever from a US corporation, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The retail giant’s inaugural sustainable debt issuance comes amid efforts to reduce carbon emissions, boost recycling and clean up its supply chain. The deal surpasses NextEra Energy Capital’s $1.5 billion June sale, which …

Bloomberg United Parcel Service (UPS) Inc agreed to acquire Roadie, a same-day delivery startup, looking to speed service and expand into atypical parcels such as oversized packages and perishable goods. The acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, comes after UPS began a pilot with Atlanta-based Roadie to test same-day deliveries. Roadie will operate under its name as a separate company, and …

Bloomberg Lululemon valuation is richer than many of its peers in the retail sector. Shares jumped as much as 14% on Saturday after the athletic clothing retailer reported second quarter revenue above analyst expectations, a sign that investors are still willing to pay significant premiums for growth. Lululemon trades at a last-twelve-months price-to-earnings ratio of 65.4 compared to 16.9 for …

Bloomberg UK retail sales growth lost momentum in August, with both shops and consumers pointing to concerns over higher prices. The value of goods sold in shops and online grew 3% in August from a year earlier, the British Retail Consortium and KPMG said, less than the 3.9% recorded the same month in 2020. Despite higher demand for clothing, especially …