General Retail News

17th January 2014
WEEKLY RETAIL NEWS HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE MARKET
KNIGHT FRANK RETAIL NEWS
General Retail News
Sports Direct the sportswear retailer,
has announced it will open its first
store in Jersey, taking 10,000 sq ft on
Queens Road, St Helier. This follows the
news that the company has taken a
4.63% stake in Debenhams (56.8m
shares at a value of approximately
£45m), leading to speculation that a full
takeover bid of the 238-store
department store chain could follow.
Oliver Bonas the fashion retailer, is
considering expansion into overseas
stores after recording a 6% year-onyear sales increase over a strong
Christmas period.
The company is
looking to open 10 more UK stores in
2014 after launching in Glasgow and
Edinburgh in 2013.
Pizza Express the restaurant chain, has
signed up to open a new site at the
£8.5m Albion Place shopping centre
development in Skipton. The scheme
will be anchored by Next and open in
Easter 2014.
Primark the fashion retailer, reported a
12% increase in Christmas sales for the
16 weeks to January 4th, and has
forecast full-year profits will be
considerably ahead of 2012 levels.
Bill’s the restaurant chain, opened a
new site on New Broadway, Ealing on
Monday January 13th. Its first site of
2014 takes its total number of
restaurants to 31, with a new unit in
Windsor also due to open on February
3rd.
Mayoral the Spanish childrenswear
retailer, has signed for a 1,537 sq ft unit
in Bluewater, Kent. The new store will
be the company’s first outside of
London, although it currently operates
in over 63 countries worldwide.
Sainsbury’s the supermarket chain, has
announced plans to deliver 1m sq ft of
new space in 2014. During Q4 2103
the company opened 555,000 sq ft
including
six
supermarkets
and
nineteen convenience stores.
This
follows
the
company’s
strong
Christmas sales results where it took
almost £7m on Christmas Eve.
Asos the online fashion retailer, has
announced plans to double the size of
its Barnsley distribution centre and
open a new centre in northern Europe
by the end of 2014.
M&G Real Estate and Aberdeen Asset
Management the investment funds,
have completed the purchase of the
380,000 sq ft Two Rivers Shopping Park
in Staines-upon-Thames for £210m.
The scheme is anchored by Waitrose,
Boots, Next and a Vue cinema.
Odeon, Swiss Cottage
Knight Frank are pleased to announce
the purchase of Odeon, Swiss Cottage
for AXA Real Estate. The leasehold
interest in the property was acquired
for £4.775m, reflecting a net initial yield
of 7.13%. The cinema is let to Odeon
for the duration of the term.
Cosmo the buffet restaurant chain, will
open a new £1m store in St. Paul’s
Square in Sheffield city centre next
Tuesday 21 January – taking its number
of UK stores up to 16.
Morrisons the supermarket chain, will
look to divest up to 10% of its £9bn
400 store property portfolio through
sales and lease backs. The company
plans to raise around £800m to
appease investors after poor Christmas
trading results.
HMV the music retailer, closed its
doors at 150 Oxford Street for the last
time on Sunday. The company will now
only operate from 363 Oxford Street
after opening last year.
Tweet of the Week
Knight Frank Retail @KFRetail
Jan 15 2013
@ChristieCoUk
said
prices
increased in 2013 for hotels by
5.7%, pubs by 3.3%, restaurants
by 4.7% #leisure
http://www.egi.co.uk/news/7775
16.nw
RETAIL IN DETAIL: 17TH JANUARY 2014
Retailer SENTIMENT
Dixons the electrical goods retailer, has
announced strong results over the
Christmas trading period.
Between
November 1st and January 4th, the
company saw a 5% year-on-year rise in
its domestic sales, a 2% rise across
Northern Europe and a 23% increase in
online sales. The company was helped
by strong Black Friday and Boxing Day
trading results, when it took £100,000
per minute in the UK. However, group
margins dropped 0.5% in the same
period and sales in its Greek arm were
down 8% year-on-year.
Asos the online retailer, recorded
extremely strong figures over the
Christmas period with a 38% year-onyear increase in total sales to £335.7m
in the four months to December 31st.
Sales in the UK were up 37% to
£133.7m but sales in the EU soared
69% to £87.3m. Retail gross margin
increased 90bps year-on-year and the
company recorded 7.9m new active
customers in the period, a 41% yearon-year increase.
RETAIL OUTLOOK FOR THIS WEEK
Morrisons the supermarket chain, saw
a decrease in total sales excluding
petrol over the Christmas period. A
5.6% year-on-year drop in the six
weeks to January has led the company
to predict a lower-than-expected full
year profit result.
Aldi and Lidl in comparison, recorded
very strong sales growth in the 12
weeks to January 5th. Sales at Aldi
increased 29.4% year-on-year, with Lidl
recording a 17.5% rise. Sainsbury’s
recorded a 3.1% sales increase and
maintained its market share at 17.1%,
with Asda and Tesco also showing
year-on-year sales increases of 0.8%
and 0.2% respectively.
Karen
Millen
the
premium
womenswear retailer, recorded a
strong Christmas period with global
revenues increasing 10% year-on-year
in the three weeks to January 4th. Yearon-year sales increased 12% in the
same period down largely to an
improved performance in full price
sales. Sales increased 25% in Spain,
22% in France and 16% in Denmark as
the company’s European business
experienced a particularly strong
Christmas.
Did You Know?
Dixons was first established as a
photographic studio in Southend,
and its name was chosen at random
from the telephone directory.
Market sentiment
Research by the Office for National
Statistics has shown that average UK
retail sales increased 2.6% month-onmonth in December – the fastest rate
in nine years. However, research by the
British
Retail
Consortium
and
Springboard has also shown that high
street footfall fell 3.7% year-on-year in
the same month. Footfall fell 0.6% in
out of town shops and 1.5% in
shopping centres to give a 2.4% UK
average decrease. Northern Ireland
high streets were particularly badly hit
with footfall down 8.7% year-on-year.
However, the decrease in footfall was
still above the UK three-month average
decrease of 2.7% and not as bad as
November which saw a 2.9% decrease.
The strong retail performance over
Christmas combined with decreasing
footfall shows how important online
sales were over the period.
Although decreasing footfall looks
ominous for high street retailers,
research by the Local Data Company
has shown that December also saw the
UK high street vacancy rate fall to its
lowest level in over three and a half
years.
Town centre vacancies stood at 13.9%,
down from 14.1% in November and the
first time the UK vacancy rate has
dropped below 14% since July 2010.
Redevelopment of vacant units, a fall in
administrations and higher numbers of
conversions of empty shops for leisure
uses have all been cited as contributing
factors. The combination of all these
factors points to the fact that the an
effective multi-platform retail offering
is becoming increasingly vital and that,
despite falling footfall, there is still
demand for high street bricks and
mortar if utilised effectively.
AGENCY
Richard Griston, Associate Partner
T +44 20 7861 1188
E [email protected]
LEASE ADVISORY
Jeremy Elphick, Partner
T +44 20 7861 1590
E [email protected]
KEY CONTACTS
DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANCY
Ian Barbour, Partner, Head of Retail
T +44 20 7861 1223
E [email protected]
The above information is sourced from Property Week, Estates Gazette, Retail Week, Drapers, The Times and the BBC and does not necessarily represent the view of
Knight Frank LLP in relation to particular properties or projects and must not be relied on in any way. No legal responsibility can be accepted by Knight Frank LLP
for any loss or damage resultant from the contents of this document.

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