Week in Review

December 17, 2022

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Week in Review | Dec. 17, 2022

Retailers are finding inventory stockpiles are more difficult to move than expected – even with promotions.

FINANCE

H&M (Sweden) reported full year net sales increased by 12% year-on-year to $21.5 billion. Excluding Russia, Belarus and Ukraine the increase was 15%.

Net sales for Q4 2022 rose 10% to $5.95 billion. Sales rose 11% excluding Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
During the quarter around 25–50 stores in China were temporarily closed due to new Covid outbreaks.

Inditex (Spain) reported sales for the first nine months of 2022 rose 20% to $24.2 billion. Profits rose 25% to $3.7 billion.

Costco (USA) reported net income for Q1 2023 rose 3% to $1.364 billion, while net sales rose to 8.1% to $53.44 billion. The retailer plans to open 24 new stores next year.

Membership fees rose 5.7% to $1 billion.

Matalan (UK) has received final offers from four bidders including John Hargreaves, who has teamed up on a 50-50 bid with the private equity arm of activist investor Elliott Advisors. Other bidders are believed to be Matalan’s senior lenders and the turnaround firms Alteri and OpCapita, per the Sunday Times.

Frasers Group (UK) has acquired 15 brands including Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green and 1980s brand Tessuti in a £47.5 million ($56.5 million) cash deal with JD Sports (UK).

RETAIL

Monsoon (UK) has said it will open stores in 2023 after Adena Brands (UK), which owns Monsoon and Accessorize, reported sales rose 43% to £258 million ($353 million) for the year ended August. Despite higher manufacturing and shipping costs, underlying profits rose 132% to £24.4 million ($29.6 million).

Two years after nearly collapsing, Monsoon said it will open more stores in 2023.

PODCAST

Positioning Your Company for Success – Regardless of the Competition

Companies have always focused on growth, but now there’s increasing pressure to drive profitability.

Typically this means cutting costs. However in a highly competitive market that will no longer work. Businesses are going to have to ‘invest their way to success’.

In this podcast, Tim Redmond, CEO of Redmond Growth Consulting, shares insights learned from his previous experience with PriceWaterhouseCooper, as well as growing a software company from 2-400 employees and then selling it to Intuit.

You’ll Learn:

Some of the costly mistakes that businesses are making and what they should be doing instead.
How to supercharge creativity to find innovative solutions and ideas.
What successful team leaders get right that mediocre ones overlook.

🎧 Listen to the podcast

INSIDE MANAGEMENT

How Creating a Company Brand Can Help You Win the Talent War

Whether you are facing ‘quiet quitting’ or just plain old quitting – or are struggling to attract the right talent, developing an internal, ‘employee facing’ brand can help companies define their vision, spell out what differentiates them as a company – and communicate that to their teams. Read More

MARKETS

UK retail sales fell unexpectedly last month as Black Friday discounts and early Christmas shopping failed to offset the impact of soaring prices.

The total sales of goods and services fell 0.4% in November, after rising 0.9% in October, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

U.S. core retail sales (excluding gas, car and restaurant sales) decreased 0.4% in November from October, according to the National Retail Federation.

Clothing and clothing accessory stores were down 0.2% month-over-month but up 1.7% year-over-year.

UK consumer confidence is at its lowest sustained level in almost 50 years, as the country braces for a prolonged recession, according to research group GfK.

The European Central Bank slowed its record pace of interest rate increases slightly last week but promised that more hikes are on the way, joining the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks in reinforcing an inflation crackdown.