Sainsbury's to invest and cut prices after Asda dream dies

Staff reporter(wp/reuters):::
sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe vowed to improve stores, cut prices on daily essentials and invest in online to restore sales growth for Britain’s second largest supermarket group after the humiliation of his failed takeover of rival Asda.

Coupe said Sainsbury’s would evolve, rather than dramatically change, a strategy that is designed to meet changing customer habits - more frequent shopping trips, the demand for more convenience and more shopping online.

The absence of a major revision to margin targets combined with better-than-expected full-year profit helped to send its shares up 3.6 percent by 1030 GMT, reducing the losses this year to 13 percent.

Sainsbury’s $9.5 billion (£7.2 billion) bid to buy the Walmart-owned Asda and surpass market leader Tesco was blocked by Britain’s competition regulator last week, in a public rebuke to Coupe who had orchestrated the deal.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the combination of the second and third biggest supermarkets would mean higher prices and must be blocked. Sainsbury’s spent 46 million pounds on the failed deal.

Sainsbury’s had wanted to combine with Asda to boost its scale and buying power so it could better compete with Tesco, the march of fast growing German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl, and Amazon.

Defence Secretary Williamson sacked over Huawei leak

Staff reporter,wp/reuters):::
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has been fired over the leak of information about Chinese telecoms company Huawei, Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said on Wednesday.

“The Prime Minister’s decision has been informed by his conduct surrounding an investigation into the circumstances of the unauthorised disclosure of information from a meeting of the National Security Council,” May’s office said in a statement.