Tuesday evening business bulletin

Aug 19 2008 By Andrew Mernin

Discount supermarkets have made further inroads into the grocery market as customers target cheaper goods, industry research showed today.

Operators Aldi, Lidl and Netto saw their combined market share rise to a best ever 6.1%, figures from TNS Worldpanel said. Aldi saw sales grow 19.8% during the 12 weeks to August 10 compared to the prior year, the data showed, with Lidl 12.3% ahead.

Frozen food chain Iceland also enjoyed sales growth of 14.4% during the period, to take its market share up to 1.7%.

There was more evidence of customers turning away from higher priced stores with another survey from Nielsen showing Marks and Spencer’s share of grocery sales during the four weeks to August 8 falling 2.1% compared to a year ago. Waitrose’s market share growth was also limited to 0.4%, the data showed.

TNS’s till roll figures showed overall industry sales grew by more than 7.2% on a year earlier - fuelled by food price inflation of 6.8% in the three months to mid-July.

There were drops in market share for giants Tesco and Sainsbury’s - down from 31.8% to 31.6% and 16.1% to 15.8% respectively.

Asda saw its share rise to 17% from 16.8%, while Morrisons edged up to 11.1% from 10.9%.

The City watchdog today warned investors that at least 10 firms were running scams targeting people who bought shares through a company that has since gone into liquidation.

The Financial Services Authority said investors who bought shares through Pacific Continental Securities had been cold-called by companies posing as recovery firms.

The firms offered to buy back the shares at an attractive price or put investors in touch with a buyer once an up-front fee had been paid.

But the FSA said the offer was a scam, and as soon as the fee was paid the firm disappeared with the money without purchasing the shares.

It added that the so-called recovery firms were often calling from outside of the UK, were not authorised by the FSA and were not permitted to approach UK consumers to promote financial services.

Pacific Continental Securities went into administration on June 20, 2007 and is now in liquidation.

The FSA said it was looking into the complaints. It urged consumers to use its register to ensure they only dealt with authorised firms, which means they have access to a complaints procedure and compensation if thing go wrong.

Alliance & Leicester’s top directors will gain huge windfalls for simply staying in their jobs following the lender’s £1.3bn takeover by Spanish bank Santander, it emerged today.

Santander is offering retention bonuses of up to 125% of salary for its top four bosses if they remain in post until December next year.

Chief executive David Bennett, who has been in the top job little more than a year, could land a potential £750,000.

He also owns nearly 61,000 A&L shares valued at more than £190,000 by Santander’s offer, which was unveiled in July.

Details of the bonuses emerged in information sent to A&L’s investors, who must approve the takeover deal at a meeting in Birmingham on September 16.

The pound at 4:30pm was US$1.8645 compared to US$1.8659 at the previous close while the euro at 4:30pm was £0.7898 compared to £0.7890 at the previous close.