Tesco is one of the worlds leading international retailers. Since the company first the trading name of Tesco, in the mid 1920s, the group has expanded into different formats, different markets and different sectors. The UKs leading retailer Tesco was floated on the stock exchange in 1947 and in 1995 took over rival Sainsburys position as the UK number one. The principal activity of the group is food retailing, with over 2,000 stores worldwide. Tesco has a long term strategy for growth, based on four key parts: growth in the Core UK business, to expand by growing internationally, to be as strong in non-food as in food and to follow customers into new retailing services. The company launched a home shopping service in 2000, allowing customers to order their shopping online. Tesco is now expanding its convenience stores and overseas into areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Poland, the US and Ireland.

Upper graph = 12 month share price with 6 month moving average
Lower graph = 12 month volume (red line = volume average).

IMO...the big main supermarkets have lost the initiative and the understanding of how to win customers back into their stores - away from LIDL / ALDI. They simply 'DON'T Get it' and think that by reducing the 'quantity of product' sold, so that they can match the price of discounters, that this will draw punters back.

However Joe Punter is far more savvy than Supermarket management teams believe, as families now match '£ / £' and 'kg / kg', along with comparable quality of the grocery product they are selling. People are getting wise to the 2-4-1 rip off scam.

The quicker main stream supermarkets reevaluate their offerings vs LIDL / ALDI profiles, the quicker confidence & trust will return families to main supermarkets.

IMO,

HAb

The size of a typical Aldi store is inadequate. When the store gets busy, the staff get hammered to hell with a massive and impossibly high work load. There isn't room on the shelves for the stock and there isn't room on the floor for the full and empty boxes or the pallets or even the staff and the pallet carriers.

Sometimes it is a truly horrible shopping experience.

The Aldi shopping experience can be quite easy to beat.

Locally to me and IMHO:

Tesco willl succeed.
Morrisons will fail.
Sainsbury's haven't much of a clue.
Waitrose are doing OK.
Aldi are going to peak.
I'm confused about Lidl: e.g., Their wine brochure is a phenominally brilliant production - but it is impossible to find the stuff on their shelves because of poor shelf displays. The same shelf problem goes for Sainsbury's.

Aldi has come under fire from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after Tesco complained that its 'Swap & Save' price comparisons were incorrect.
In the television and print adverts, shoppers spoke about going to Aldi instead of their usual supermarket, with one saying: “We've saved so much on out weekly shop”. The ASA agreed that Aldi offered savings, but it banned the ads on the basis they exaggerated how many people had taken part in the swap.
Aldi said Swap & Save diverged from traditional comparative advertising because it examined overall shopping costs at a single store over an extended period of time, rather than the prices of individual products or a standardised basket of shopping.
“We told Aldi Stores Ltd to ensure that in future the basis for comparisons was made clear and did not mislead, and that their comparisons were verifiable,” the ASA said.
Aldi's joint managing director of corporate buying, Giles Hurley, said: “It is important to be clear that the ASA has endorsed the validity of the Swap & Save campaign.
“We recognise that the decision to uphold competitor representations was technical in its nature and, because of this, we will respect the finding and have addressed the issues that it raised.”

Tesco head of remuneration committee to step down

Overhaul of supermarket’s board continues with replacement of Stuart Chambers, but he will remain on the board

The Guardian, Wednesday 31 December 2014 18.08 GMT

Tesco's board is undergoing upheaval in the wake of the discovery of a £263m profits black hole. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian


The head of Tesco’s remuneration committee is to step down from the role in the latest overhaul of the supermarket’s board of directors.

Stuart Chambers, the former chief executive of glassmaker Pilkington who has sat on Tesco’s board since 2010, will be succeeded as chair of the committee by fellow non-executive Deanna Oppenheimer on 1 January but will remain on the board.

Tesco’s board is undergoing upheaval in the wake of the appointment of chief executive Dave Lewis and the discovery of a £263m profits black hole, a matter now being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

A replacement is being sought for Sir Richard Broadbent, the chairman, while audit committee chairman Ken Hanna and senior independent director Patrick Cescau are also expected to step down next year.

Meanwhile, Richard Cousins, the head of giant catering group Compass, and Mikael Ohlsson, a former boss of Ikea, have recently joined the retailer.

not that either are in the vicinity (no idea where the nearest might be), but i would perhaps use Lidl or Aldi for basic household goods, but wouldn't go near them for foodstuffs unless the quality was up to snuff

interestingly, our local sainsbury's correctly determined that locals went to waitrose for their vegetables because of the quality
this area was therefore specifically targeted and most successfully too, and there has been huge increase in the quality and variety offered including a wide range of organic produce

sadly, sainsbury's bread is vile, and i wouldn't buy meat or fish there ..... as and when we need some supermarket chicken, i would go to waitrose or even m&s where the (organic) quality is head and shoulders better

Asda boss chief exec Andy Clarke into days Sun.

The growth of discount stores like Aldi could put traditional household names out of business . He warned Aldi and Lidle will grow their market share in 2015 and there will be winners and losers.Mr Clarke said that the level of profitability decline in some retailers over the course of 2014 - we have never seen it before. City analysts warned that Tesco, sains and Morrisons a playing a dangerous game by positioning themselves in the middle of the market. They are being undercut by discounters while at the same time unable to charge the high prices at stores like Waitrose.

Turkeys coming home to roost at supermarkets

By John Harrington

January 02 2015, 9:20am
No one is expecting the Christmas and New Year trading period to have magically cured all of the sector's ills



The first full week of 2015 sees a spate of trading updates from retailers, with none more keenly awaited than the one from Tesco.

The update covers the run-up to Christmas plus the New Year holiday period, but just as importantly the company plans to share more detail about the measures it plans to take to improve the competitiveness of its UK stores and to strengthen the balance sheet.

Assuming we can trust the figures from Tesco (LON:TSCO) - not necessarily a safe bet in the light of events last year - the company said on December 9 that it expects full-year profits will not exceed £1.4bn.

That came as a shock to the market as, disastrous though trading was last year for the UK's biggest supermarket, analysts who cover the stock had expected it to post trading profit for the year to the end of February 2014 of between £1.7bn and £2.2bn.

It therefore goes without saying that another profit warning would not go down well with the City, and while the supermarket chain has become more accident prone than Frank Spencer, there was a little bit of encouragement last month for Tesco from consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel, which said Tesco saw a 2.7% year-on-year fall in sales in the 12 weeks to 7 December - its least bad trading performance since June.

The relatively recent phenomenon of "national discount day" - otherwise known as Black Friday - helped put a bit of spark into sales figures durign the period.

Nonetheless, Tesco's market share has tumbled to 29.1% from 29.9% at the start of 2014; that's still an amazingly strong position but the trend is worrying, as the company flounders in its attempts to fend off the hard discounters below and the posh nosh peddlers from above.

The view in the City is that the company will need cash to see it through a prolonged period of regeneration.

New boss "Drastic" Dave Lewis is expected to sell off parts of the business, such as Tesco Bank and its analytics business Dunnhumby.

Others are bracing themselves for a rights issue of around £3bn or so, to cut its debt mountain which, at the time of the last results, was £7.5bn.

In common with the other supermarkets, Tesco is seeing the resale value of its property assets plunge in value as consumers abandon the "big box" edge of town outlets, and some City pundits think the company could write down the value of its retail estate by more than £1bn, following on from last year's £800mln write down.

Tesco's big day is 8 January, which is the same day as Morrisons (LON:MRW) and Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) update the market and one day after Sainsbury's (LON:SBRY) tries to convince the market the future is orange.

We already know the general thrust of Morrisons' plans to restore its fortunes; on one level it is returning to its roots as a low price retailer - it is based in Yorkshire, after all - and taking the German discount chains Aldi and Lidl head on, while on another level it is adjusting to the digital shopping age, as it belatedly rolls out its online offering.

December's numbers from Kantar Worldpanel were not encouraging as Morrisons was the worst performer of the big chains, with sales falling by 3.2% in the three months to 7 December against 2.5% in the three months to 9 November.

Morrisons wrote down the value of its retail estate by around £700mln last March and more pain could be set to come.

Sainsbury (J), meanwhile, wrote down the value of its property portfolio by £628mln in 2014, and sooner or later the supermarkets must bite the bullet and start closing some of their bigger stores.

Big hitting US investment bank has speculated that one in five stores must go dark in order to protect profits.

Mike Coupe, the new chief executive of Sainsbury's has, in football parlance, been given a "hospital pass" by his predecessor, Justin King, who checked out just as sales went ex-growth.

Coupe admitted only 75% of its supermarkets were in the "right locations and are of the right size for our food and non-food offer".

The remaining 25% will have "under-utilised space" he said and Sainsbury's would consider concessions for 100 stores.

That is just one of Coupe's problems; in November Coupe revealed a revival plan based on £150mln of price cuts and £500mln of cost savings, and warned that like-for-like sales growth in the sector is likely to be negative for the next few years.

That just about sums up the picture for the grocery chains. No one is expecting the Christmas and New Year trading period to have magically cured all of the sector's ills, but it seems the best that can be hoped for by shareholders is that the lifeboats are not taking on water at quite the rate they once were

INVESTMENT EXTRA: Tesco is a tough case for Dave Lewis... so what will it take to make the company investable again?



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/investing/article-2894752/INVESTMENT-EXTRA-Tesco-tough-case-Dave-Lewis-make-company-investable-again.html

Sharecast -


Tesco, Sainsbury's and M&S hit by Christmas blues

Sun, 04 January 2015


Tesco, Sainsbury's and M&S hit by Christmas blues


Sainsbury's, Tesco and Marks & Spencer are set to report a decline in Christmas sales this week.
The three retailers are widely expected to post disappointing festive figures, with Sainsbury's and Tesco bearing the brunt of a decline in food sales, while M&S suffered from a struggling clothing business.

On Thursday, Tesco will release a trading update in which new chief executive Dave Lewis is expected to outline plans to cut hundreds of millions of pounds of costs and sell off assets, in a bid to implement price cuts in its stores and improve its balance sheet.

Lewis could also formally announce Tesco's intention to sell off its online streaming business Blinkbox, a move which has been anticipated since he took over.

"I would be surprised if there is not a cut in capital expenditure. I don't see how you can justify spending £2.1bn a year," said Shore Capital analyst Clive Black, who added he expected Tesco to unveil a "focus on simplification" and a "material contraction of head office".

Black said that the festive season highlighted a drastic change in the habits of British shoppers, who no longer seem to favour shopping at superstores.

"Five or six years ago people queued to get into superstore car parks. Those days are gone. For some people they are a glorified top-up shop," Black said.

According to a Deutsche Bank estimate, Tesco is expected to post a 5% drop in like-for-like sales in the three months to 30 November, a slight improvement from a 5.4% decline in the last quarter, with a drop of 4.3% for the period since then.

However, Black believes the retailer could fare better and has forecast a drop in like-for-like sales of between 2% and 2.5% for the Christmas period, slightly worse than Sainsbury's, which is expected to post a 1.8% drop in like-for-like sales.

Meanwhile, M&S is expected to report a 0.9% increase in like-for-like food sales during the Christmas period but its like-for-like sales in the general merchandise division are expected to be down 3%.

I guess all Supermarkets vary by area.
My Tescos ( large supermarket) has gone so far downhill its unbeleivable....eg
No baskets available a lot of the time
Products not priced up correctly ...and if at all
Bags For Life unavailable for months
and on and on
Having referred to the 'How Did We Do' and complained, they rarely replied and if they did the attitude was 'Thats the way it is'
Eventually giving me 100 Clubcard points to shut up

My local Aldi is good apart from fresh produce which is not dated and frequently goes off in 24 hrs and so you wonder how fresh it was. E- mailed them to ask why they don't address this and never even got a reply
Choice is also rather limited

They say if you have a good experience anywhere then its worth considering for investment. I predicted a fall for Tesco to friends about 9 months ago, but did not expect it be the way it happened.

I guess you pays your money and takes your choice

Oriel highlights upside risk at Tesco as grocers report on Christmas trading


http://sharecast.com/news/oriel-highlights-upside-risk-at-tesco-as-grocers-report-on-christmas-trading/22362013.html

Do Apple trees grow apples with out of date labels on them, before pick them?

Aldi supermarket has recalled one of its products after salmonella was found in a batch of chocolate.

The budget store has recalled 200g (7oz) packs of Choceur Treasures with a best before date of September 1 2015.

Issuing an official Product Recall Information Notice, the Food Standards Agency said that salmonella has been detected in one batch of the product which has been on sale in Aldi stores in the Midlands area only.

No other Choceur/Aldi products are known to be affected.

The list of shops where the chocolates have been sold include Harlestone Road in Northampton, Weston Favell, Sheaf Street in Daventry, Carina Road in Kettering and Old Greens Norton Road in Towcester.

Product recall notices have been displayed in all the stores and customers who bought the product are being asked to return it to the store.

The Food Standards Agency is warning people not to eat the product.

Grocery price war explodes as Asda invests £300m, Tesco and Sainsbury to follow suit

Tue, 06 January 2015


Grocery price war explodes as Asda invests £300m, Tesco and Sainsbury to follow suit

The UK supermarket price war echoed to the latest shots fired on Tuesday morning as Asda ploughed its largest ever investment into grocery price cuts and Tesco and Sainsbury were rumoured to be in the midst of their own significant price investments.
Walmart-owned Asda said it had invested £300m into cutting prices for the first quarter, claiming this is its 'biggest ever rollback' as part of a previously announced £1bn investment in price cuts, while it was rumoured that Sainsbury's had reduced 600 of its prices on Tuesday too, in the second phase of the FTSE 100 reailer's price-lowering strategy.

Asda said it had already trimmed many prices on thousands of products on 1 January, with a full suite of cuts across 2,500 "household favourites" and "basket essentials" such as milk and eggs as well as big brands, some until the end of January or March and some ongoing.

"We're going further than ever before, rolling back those every day, can't-live-without items at a bigger percentage than we've ever been able to do previously," said chief merchandising officer for food, Barry Williams.

"With hundreds of products at 50p, and even more at 15% less than normal, we're aiming to make a big difference for families in their weekly shop."

Independent City analyst Nick Bubb said Asda's move was coming as Tesco was rumoured to be in the midst of making its own cuts.

"Well, with Asda already upping the ante, it looks like Tesco is at last going to join in the supermarket price war on Thursday and come up with a way of no longer over-charging its customers for their branded groceries," he said, citing grovery blogger Steve Dresser.

"Clearly Tesco must feel the price gap to their main rivals is now intolerable and they have to react," added Bubb.

Dresser reported that Tesco is to embark on a price campaign that will go live on Thursday to coincide with the strategic update from chief executive Dave Lewis, with all stores to see new price communication around branded prices.

Sainsbury reports on Xmas trading on Wednesday, with Morrisons announcing its own trading statement on Tuesday 13 January.

Thursday's agenda: Tesco boss Dave Lewis eyes fightback
By Andrew Neil
January 07 2015, 6:30pm
Thursday's agenda: Tesco boss Dave Lewis eyes fightback


All eyes will be on new Tesco boss Dave Lewis tomorrow.

The former Unilever man and his team send out an eagerly awaited statement expected to contain a raft of new measures aimed at turning the supermarket giant around.

It hasn’t been an easy start for Lewis, who took charge in September.

His plans to revitalise the UK’s biggest grocer have been hindered by an accounting scandal.

Meanwhile, the supermarket has been trying to keep continually gaining cut-price competition at bay.

The so-called big four grocers - Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda - are embroiled in a bitter price war triggered by discount players Lidl and Aldi.

In December, Tesco issued its fourth profit warning for the year, saying full-year profits would not exceed £1.4bn, down from £3.3bn a year before.

At Unilever, Lewis became known as ‘Drastic Dave’ for his cost cutting measures and tomorrow’s statement is expected to show his first steps to streamline the business and clear up the accounting mess.

The Sunday Times, citing senior sources, reported earlier this week that the statement will contain job cuts and changes to supplier contracts, along with details on the possible sale of overseas units.


http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/market_reports/76006/thursdays-agenda-tesco-boss-dave-lewis-eyes-fightback--76006.html

From Sky News:

City Awaits Tesco Chief's Turnaround Plan
The struggling grocer will receive just £5m for its Blinkbox media service, Sky News learns.
22:58, UK,
Wednesday 07 January 2015
Dave Lewis Tesco Boss
Tesco's Dave Lewis will set out plans to revive the company's fortunes

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By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The new chief executive of Tesco will on Thursday set out a blueprint to revive its fortunes through a string of measures including the appointment of a new boss of its UK operations.

The plans unveiled by Dave Lewis, who joined the UK's biggest retailer last September, will face intense scrutiny in the City as investors assess its prospects for recovering from a slump in profits and an accounting scandal which saw profits overstated by £263m.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Lewis will announce that Tesco is selling its Blinkbox media business to TalkTalk for just £5m, a small fraction of the money splurged on the loss-making division it acquired in 2011.

The UK's biggest retailer will also say that it believes there are more appropriate owners for Dunnhumby, the unit which manages its Clubcard loyalty scheme, signalling a likely sale process which could value it at up to £2bn.

WPP Group, the marketing services giant, and private equity firms Advent and TPG have already expressed interest in buying Dunnhumby.

Sources confirmed that Mr Lewis will also announce plans to save hundreds of millions of pounds annually by cutting head office costs, which will trigger significant job cuts, as well as closing its final salary pension scheme.

Another key element of Tesco's transformation plan will be Mr Lewis's recruitment of a leading retail executive to run the core UK business.

One executive named as a potential candidate on Wednesday night was Ian McLeod, the commercial director of Australian retailer Wesfarmers and a former Asda executive.

Mr Lewis is unlikely to announce any plans relating to the future of Tesco's Asian or European operations, or its banking arm, sources said.

However, one piece of positive news is likely to emerge in the shape of Tesco's trading performance during December.

While the company's overall third-quarter sales are understood to have been sluggish, one adviser to Tesco said its Christmas sales had given Mr Lewis "cause for optimism".

The new chief executive is under intense pressure to deliver rapid evidence that the UK business can win back customers who have defected to discounters such as Aldi and Lidl.

He is expected to announce significant price-cutting plans, echoing moves in recent days by rivals Asda and J Sainsbury.

Mr Lewis took over from Philip Clarke, who was sacked last summer after presiding over a disastrous three-year period.

A series of profit warnings last year led Tesco to say in December that trading profit would not exceed £1.4bn for the full year ending February 2015.

The Serious Fraud Office and Financial Reporting Council are probing Tesco's profit overstatement, with a number of the grocer's executives having left or still under suspension.

The inquiries relate to payments from suppliers, with Mr Lewis set to announce new arrangements in the coming months.

Tesco declined to comment.

....................

All the above has been out in the public domain already from various industry pundits and financial commentators - with one exception:

"strong Christmas sales"

Hmmm? So Lewis can run Tesco quite well. I've been thinking how happy the local Tesco staff seem to be these days when we visit. I'm sure they are behind him with their support and I suspect too, so will be the Tesco suppliers.

I'm bullish.

Tesco joins price war as supermarket plots recovery course

Tesco has joined the supermarket price war on the day that new boss Dave Lewis is due to set out options for reviving the troubled company.

Following cuts by Asda and Sainsbury's, Tesco said it would reduce the price of some big-brand products, including Hovis, Coca-Cola, Marmite and Tetley.

Later on Thursday, Mr Lewis is expected to outline further measures to revive Tesco's fortunes.

Price cuts, job losses and asset sales are thought to be on the agenda.

more...

Trading Statement

· Investing in a better offer for Tesco customers is driving a step up in underlying business performance
· Broad-based improvement in the UK business resulting in like-for-like sales performance of (2.9)% in last 19 weeks versus (5.4)% in Q2. This includes like-for-like sales performance of (0.3)% for the six-week Christmas period
· All UK formats and categories improved like-for-like performance. In the six week Christmas period, this included:
o Grocery home shopping +12.9%, general merchandise online +22.2% and clothing online +52.4%
o Express format +4.9%, overall general merchandise +4.8% and fresh food volume growth for first time in five years
· Europe returned to positive like-for-like sales growth of +1.0% in last six weeks
· Announcing progress on our immediate priorities, including a significant cost-efficiency programme and a reduction in capital expenditure to £1bn in 2015/16
· Decision not to pay a final dividend for 2014/15

Dave Lewis - Chief Executive

"We are seeing the benefits of listening to our customers. The investments we are making in service, availability and selectively in price are already resulting in a better shopping experience. A broad-based improvement has built gradually through the third quarter, leading to a strong Christmas trading performance.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues in Tesco. The unique combination of retail expertise and real passion for the customer has been an inspiration to be a part of. In difficult circumstances the team has begun the challenging task of reinvigorating our business. There is more to do but we have taken the first important steps in the right direction.

We have some very difficult changes to make. I am very conscious that the consequences of these changes are significant for all stakeholders in our business but we are facing the reality of the situation. Our recent performance gives us confidence that when we pull together and put the customer first we can deliver the right results."

more...

Well so far market looks impressed, Halfords getting hammered on news, had a dabble @ 191.0 this morn but not holding my breath.