Sainsbury's offers £1.3bn for Argos

Sainsbury's has offered £1.3bn to win control of Argos owner Home Retail Group. 

 

After revealing earlier this month that an approach last year was rejected, the supermarket has offered the equivalent of 161.3p a share for the retailer.

Australian Retail Giant Wesfarmers to buy UK DIY Chain Homebase for £340m

Wesfarmers already owns Bunnings - one of Australia's largest suppliers of outdoor living and DIY products. 

The Australian retailer said it would spend a further £242m to build up the Homebase business under the Bunnings brand.

The deal is subject to shareholder approval.

Wesfarmers, which owns one of Australia's biggest supermarket chains, Coles, said the UK's home improvement and garden market was worth £38bn.

Homebase is the second-largest home improvement and garden products retailer in the UK and Ireland.

Sales fall again at Marks & Spencer

UK like-for-like sales fell by 0.4% for the period. General merchandise, which includes the clothing division, were down by 1.2%.

Food sales rose by just 0.2%. Both figures were in line with analysts' expectations.

The retailer said underlying profits rose by 6.1% to £284m, although after taking into account one-off items pre-tax profits fell 22.7% to £216m.

 

Those one-off items included almost £27m on revamping UK stores and £22m on European store costs.

M&S said that trading conditions were challenging, with the UK retail sector affected by unseasonal conditions that resulted in high levels of promotions, particularly in the first quarter.

World cup: Third Quarter 2014, had being stong in profit - William Hill

The bookmaker said its operating profit for the full year would be at the bottom end of the range of analysts' forecasts of £290.9m and £312.1m.

 

The warning came with results for the three months to the end of September.

Tesco is selling supermarket sites for £250m..

Supermarket giant Tesco is selling off more than a dozen sites that it no longer wants to develop to a property company in a £250m deal.

 

Some 10,000 homes could be built on the sites in London, the South East and Bath.

They are part of nearly 50 projects which Tesco said earlier this year it was abandoning, many of which are now derelict.

The decision was part of the supermarket's revival strategy.

Woolworths First-Half Profits Fell- takeover Rumours

The Australian newspaper reported fresh rumours that US private equity giant KKR had a bid that could be "almost ready" for consideration. 

 

It would be one of the biggest deal in Australia's corporate history, the newspaper said.