Retail Gazette’s Post

B&Q is set to acquire five Homebase stores in the UK for £2.5m following the chain’s collapse last year. https://lnkd.in/eBkvdi9q #retailnews #property

'B&Q acquires 5 Homebase UK stores🛍🇬🇧 B&Q is set to acquire five Homebase stores in the UK for £2.5m following the retailer’s collapse last year💔💷 More insights at databoutique.com 📈🔍 #BandQ #Homebase #RetailNews #BusinessAcquisition 🏪' by Retail Gazette about B&Q

Following the announcement on 24 December that it has reached agreement to acquire three leasehold stores currently trading as Homebase in the Republic of Ireland, B&Q today further announced that it has agreed to acquire five leasehold stores in the UK, for a total purchase price of £2.5m. These stores will further complement and strengthen B&Q’s existing network of 303 stores in the UK, enabling more customers to benefit from the B&Q and TradePoint UK extensive offer of home improvement products and services. Graham Bell, B&Q CEO, comments: “We’re delighted to be buying these five stores, bringing a total of eight additional sites to our fantastic store network in the UK and Ireland. We’re determined to give home improvers the choice and convenience they deserve, and to transform the home improvement stores in these locations to fulfil that need.   “It’s a great way to be starting 2025! We look forward to swiftly concluding these purchases and converting the stores to the B&Q brand and offer, and to welcoming our new customers to the stores and new colleagues to the B&Q family.”   Read the full announcement via the link in the comments below.

Exciting news - B&Q has today announced that it has reached agreements to acquire three leasehold stores, currently trading as Homebase, in the Republic of Ireland for a total purchase price of c.£3.2m. The three stores complement B&Q’s existing network of eight stores in the Republic of Ireland, representing strategic additions to its estate. Graham Bell, B&Q CEO, comments: “We’re delighted to be adding these three stores to our fantastic store network. We’re determined to give home improvers the choice and convenience they deserve, and these locations need a home improvement store that fulfils their need. “We look forward to swiftly concluding the purchase and converting the stores to the B&Q brand and offer, and to welcoming our new customers to the stores and new colleagues to the B&Q family.” Read the full announcement via the link in the comments below. 

Really smart deal by Sainsbury's with a £130m investment in to 10 Homebase stores, taking existing retail space rather than trying to develop new… here’s why it’s a clever move: ✅ Adding 235k sq.ft. of net sales area in a single transaction - it's very hard to find new sites for supermarkets – most of them were taken by the traditional Big 4 operators during the 1990’s and early 2000’s… ✅ Development economics on brand new stores are also not stacking up (even if you could find the sites) – build costs have increased by more than a third in the last few years and coupled with wider valuation yields means it requires much higher rents to provide developers with sufficient profits ✅ Sainsbury’s expect the 10 sites to be open by the end of 2025 – 15 months from now – for new builds it would’ve taken years to get through the planning process and actually build the stores ✅ Allows Sainsbury’s to have a presence in areas they don’t currently cover… Shoppers typically won’t travel more than 10 minutes to a supermarket – they have identified 400,000 new shoppers within 10 minutes drive time of these new sites ✅ Securing the occupation of these sites when if they had been on the open market you would’ve expected competition from the likes of Aldi UK Lidl GB B&M Retail Wickes etc Having this kind of money to be investing in growth shows how strong Sainsbury’s performance is currently – they are really starting to see the benefits of all the investments that have been made in to cost cutting initiatives and the product range, which has seen them able to grow market share in one of the most competitive grocery markets in the world. Well done Patrick Dunne Jamie Cowen and the wider team 💡 https://lnkd.in/e7VtMune

With Day One now under his belt as the new Executive Chairman of department store and supermarket group, John Lewis & Partners, we await pronouncements from Jason Tarry, former Tesco UK & Ireland CEO, as to how (or indeed, whether) he is going to atone for the sins of his predecessor, Dame Sharon White and (surely outgoing) CEO, Nish Kankiwala, now totally outflanked by Tarry ‘just above’ and recently reinstated Executive Director, Peter Ruis ‘just below’. Unlike Tesco (and, for that matter, Marks & Spencer), JLP is a bifurcated business, with the loss-making John Lewis retails stores and profitable Waitrose supermarkets operating as essentially independent businesses mostly cohabiting under the same roof. They have different apps too, so you can’t shop for household goods and food seamlessly. Indeed when I searched for ‘chicken’ on the John Lewis app, it offered up a 10” soft toy version of Molly from the Chicken Run movie (see pic)! Exacerbating the problem is the disconnect between the tech in the John Lewis bricks-and-mortar stores and its ecommerce app, something I have written about many times before. And then there’s the utter craziness of the plan to move into ‘build-to-rent’ residential real estate development and management. This will only end in tears unless Tarry nips it in the bud. By the way, I do take issue with the press release issued a few months ago by JLP’s Director of Build-to-Rent, Katherine Russell, trying to justify this very decision, with the throw-away line that it is “something that our fellow retailer Asda also plans”. Not exactly. What Asda announced around the same time was a plan to redevelop its Park Royal site to create a new superstore in partnership with property developer Barratt London, and also build some 1,500 homes FOR SALE on the same site. As far as I can tell, Asda has no plans to be operationally involved with the residential property side of the redevelopment. Tarry knows retail. But leading JLP back to the path of consistent profitability on both sides of the business will surely be his biggest challenge yet.

'Lidl eyes 10 new stores before Christmas as it inks £70m sale and leaseback deal 🏢💷 Lidl is ramping up its national expansion as it exchanges on a £70m sale and leaseback deal and plans to open 10 new stores before Christmas 🎄🙌 #Lidl #RetailExpansion #BusinessNews. Discover more data 📊 with databoutique.com 💻 - your largest source for public data that helps understand the news in retail. #DataDriven #RetailNews' by Retail Gazette about Lidl International

Following the announcement on 24 December that it has reached agreement to acquire three leasehold stores currently trading as Homebase in the Republic of Ireland, B&Q today further announced that it has agreed to acquire five leasehold stores in the UK, for a total purchase price of £2.5m. These stores will further complement and strengthen B&Q’s existing network of 303 stores in the UK, enabling more customers to benefit from the B&Q and TradePoint UK extensive offer of home improvement products and services. Graham Bell, B&Q CEO, comments: “We’re delighted to be buying these five stores, bringing a total of eight additional sites to our fantastic store network in the UK and Ireland. We’re determined to give home improvers the choice and convenience they deserve, and to transform the home improvement stores in these locations to fulfil that need.   “It’s a great way to be starting 2025! We look forward to swiftly concluding these purchases and converting the stores to the B&Q brand and offer, and to welcoming our new customers to the stores and new colleagues to the B&Q family.” Post source Kingfisher plc

7-Eleven announced the planned closures of 444 underperforming c-stores in North America, according to parent company Seven & i Holdings. The world’s largest c-store retailer also agreed last month to offload an undisclosed number of properties in North America via sale-leaseback for a profit of $520 million. That deal is expected to close in February 2025. In North America, the company said it’s enduring “a tough consumer spending environment, particularly among lower-and middle-income earners.” The company added that in North America there is a growing polarization of consumption due to a decline in labor incomes, which is a result of challenging employment conditions, as well as inflationary pressures and high interest rates.

Lidl GB Secures £70 Million Deal to Expand Across the UK with 12 New Stores Lidl, the popular German discount supermarket chain, has secured a landmark £70 million sale-and-leaseback deal to fund the development of 12 new stores across the United Kingdom. This strategic move is part of Lidl’s ambitious UK expansion plan, which aims to make affordable, high-quality groceries accessible to even more communities nationwide. To bring this vision to life, Lidl has teamed up with Roadside Real Estate and Meadow Real Estate Fund, who have formed a joint venture to acquire these new stores upon completion. Under the agreement, Lidl will continue to manage and operate each location, allowing the retailer to strengthen its UK presence while unlocking capital to fuel further growth. Initially, Lidl acquired land and planning permissions for each of the 12 strategic sites. Once construction is complete, Roadside Real Estate will acquire the stores, leasing them back to Lidl under a 25-year contract. This flexible capital arrangement allows Lidl to grow its network while maintaining a robust operational foothold in key communities. The funding deal sees the joint venture contributing an initial £30 million, with a further £40 million to be provided upon the stores’ completion between late October 2024 and February 2025. These new additions will bolster Lidl’s current network of over 960 UK stores, solidifying its position as a major player in the British retail sector. https://lnkd.in/ewBWxueP Jason Buckley Oliver McGuinness Robert Beaumont