JDW, SBUX, GAW, Amber Taverns, selling prices, coffee market & other:

A DAY IN THE LIFE:

Inertia is very human.

But it can also be a bit of a nuisance, I mean take my shoes.

I don’t know how, perhaps I have super-feet, but I put a hole in the inside lining of one of them and subsequently it became uncomfortable.

I lived with it, as you do, for many weeks until I happened to be passing a shop, in Malton of all places, that had boxes and boxes of shoe liners (mostly for farmers’ wellies) outside, so I bought a few.

And they worked well for a while but, over time, they got crumpled up, torn, holey and generally shredded until they were much, much worse in terms of comfort than had been the hole they were put in there to plug.

So I put up with that, also for many weeks until finally, battling the inertia that afflicts at least this human, I pulled them out, threw them in the bin and stuck some stick-plasters in there.

As you’ve to mind your pennies.

You can take the boy out of Yorkshire but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the boy. On to the news:

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PUBS & RESTAURANTS:

Selling prices:

The Morning Advertiser has run a poll and found that 82% of pubs sell pints of lager for more than £4. Not a shock if you frequent pubs in London. The average price for lager is said to be up 35p (or 8.3%) in the first six months of this year…

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The coffee market:

The growth of the UK premium vending and self-serve coffee market (i.e. machines) has been led by Costa Coffee, with the industry growing by 11% over the last year, reaching an estimated 20,771 units. Costa Express units account for 13,200 of these, with Absolute Coffee in second place with 1,500 units and We Proudly Serve Starbucks with 1,100 units….

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Discounters:

Lidl GB results for the year ending 28 February 2023 show revenue up 18.8% to £9.3bn, making a loss before tax of £76m compared to a profit of £41m the year prior. The discounter said the figures ‘underline significant investment in prices, colleagues, suppliers and future growth’.

COMPANY NEWS:

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is stepping down from the board, with the company saying the change was part of a planned transition, but Schultz, 70, didn’t provide a reason for his exit….

Gaucho has opened its first restaurant in Wales, located in Cardiff’s historic St David’s Centre.

The MCA reports that Amber Taverns is planning some 14-16 new openings for the current year. The company reported a 70% increase in revenue with sales of £95.7m (2022: £56.2m) for the 53 weeks to 5 February 2023. EBITDA was £22.5m (2022: £14.2m) and operating profit was £15.8m (2022: £7.9m).

Chick-fil-A is due to relaunch in the UK in early 2025 and intends to have five sites within the first two years….

DoorDash Inc has announced that it is to transfer its listing to the Nasdaq Stock Market from the New York Stock Exchange….

JD Wetherspoon it to make its student pricing offer available to all customers and not just students from Wednesday 13 September to Wednesday 11 October, inclusive. It says there will be discounts across 30 drinks and 30 food items including Budweiser (draught), Corona (draught), Coors, coffee/tea/hot chocolate and burgers.

William Grant & Sons has acquired gin producer Silent Pool Distillers. It says that production of Silent Pool’s gins will remain at its new asset’s Surrey Hills distillery. 

HOTELS & LEISURE TRAVEL:

Venice has given a trial of a €5 tourist tax the greenlight, with mayor Luigi Brugnaro saying ‘We have been hearing for 50 years that Venice is invaded by tourists and, after years of immobility, it’s now time we decided and did something tangible’.

ACI Europe reports that European airline traffic approached pre-Covid levels during July, at 97% of 2019 levels….

Manchester Airports Group has raised £360m in the UK bond market, with an 18-year bond being issued at a rate of 6.125%….

Trainline’s better-than-anticipated growth in H1 sent shares up, as the digital railcard platform’s net ticket sales increased by 23% to £2.65bn in the six months ending August….

OTHER LEISURE:

Games Workshop has updated on trading ahead of its AGM next week saying that ‘trading for the three months to 27 August 2023 was ahead of the Board’s expectations for the quarter with core revenue of c.£121 million (2022/23: £106 million) and licensing revenue of c.£6 million (2022/23: £3 million). Profit before tax is estimated at c.£57 million (2022/23: £39 million). This has been driven by healthy growth across all channels….’

MGM Resorts shares have fallen by more than 6% after a cyberattack has seen its booking systems and slot machines go out of order for the past three days….

The US government seeks to prove that Google has illegally leveraged its power to maintain a monopoly over internet search engines. The trial is now in its third day and is considered a major test of antitrust law which could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry.

A study by Weekly10 has found that Google has been ranked as the number 1 company to work for in the UK, followed by Salesforce in second and Morgan Stanley in third. Other big industry names like Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Deloitte also made it into the leaderboard.

FINANCE & MARKETS:

The Bank of England next opines on UK interest rates next Thursday. The drop in GDP of 0.5% in July (after a rise in June of 0.5%) will have slightly strengthened that argument of those suggesting the Bank should hold rates. A 25bp rise is still the bookies’ favourite result.

The European Central Bank has put up its core rates by 0.25% with its deposit rate rising for at the 10th consecutive meeting from 3.75pc to a high since the Euro was launched of 4.00%.

The UK has only replaced a third of public investment provided by the EU reports UK in a Changing Europe. It says only an eighth of infrastructure investment has been replaced since Brexit. UKICE says ‘it is not clear that the UK’s domestic development banks will be able to fill the hole left by the EIB by the end of the decade.’

Sterling mixed at $1.2423 and €1.1663. Oil up at $94.47. UK 10yr gilt yield down another 8bps at 4.28%. World markets better yesterday and London set to open some 26pts higher as at 6.30am.

RETAIL WITH NICK BUBB:

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