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The Retail PulseFSP Retail Business ConsultantsSeptember 2014

Retailer Births & Deaths

There were 2 administrations in September: Phones 4 U and Austique.

There were 9 new additions to FSP's Retailer Database in September, with 1 new retailer proposingto open in the UK market: Halford's cycling-only format Cycle Republic.

Retail Burn

This month, as usual, the big national chainsattract the most press. The most talked aboutretailers, according to the Retail Burn,include: Aldi, H&M, Jack Wills, Caffe Nero,Strada, Kiddicare, Internacionale, La Senza,Tesco plc and Phones 4 U.

The retailer with the highest number ofpositive news articles in September was Aldi,with plans to open up to 65 new UK storesnext year as it revealed UK sales of £5.3bnfor 2013.

Phones 4 U having fallen into administrationfollowing the loss of a number of keycontracts resulting in the closure of its 550stores.

Hot 100

The Hot 100 in September 2014 included; Growing sales and opening new stores, Yours Increasing profits, sales and margin, Dunelm Mill Opened eighth store in Qatar's new HamadInternational Airport, WH Smith Travel Retail Launching new cycling-only format in London,Halfords Undergoing major refurbishment programme,Bella Italia Opening on London's Oxford Street, Russell andBromley Improving profitability, McDonald's Opening new store in Bedford, Warren James

These sustainable businesses have substantialsales, a healthy profit and have maintained goodfinancial health.

For more information on the BIS Wealth CreationIndex, please e-mail us.

Retail News Index

The FSP Retail News Index is a 3 month moving average measure of sentiment in reported retailnews stories.

The September RNI index for All Retailers, at 105, has increased by 1. Leisure, at 118, has increased by 6. Clothing & Footwear, at 96, has increased by 3. Household, at 104, has decreased by 4. Personal, at 103, has remained steady. Grocery, at 100, has decreased by 3. Food & Beverage, at 108, has decreased by 2.

For the full report, click here.

FSP on average reviews over 350 unique items of retailer news. Each article is scored according tosentiment. RNI is the sum of these scores indexed against 2005 and averaged over a three monthperiod. The RNI time series for all retailers starts from May 2002.

Product Focus

Retailer Risk AnalysisAfter coming clean about its accounting problems, Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent rebuffedcriticism that he should have discovered the issue sooner. "Things are always unnoticed until theyhave been noticed." he said.

An interesting comment from the Tesco chairman. At FSP we would argue that the best way tonotice things is to look for them!

We wouldn’t claim that we could have spotted the accounting discrepancies at Tesco, but at FSP wedo pride ourselves on being inquisitive and using research coupled with almost 40 years ofconsulting experience to make informed recommendations to our clients.

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Retail Pulse data derived from Snap-Shop.co.uk01494 474740 fspretail@fspretail.comIf you no longer wish to receive the Retail Pulse from FSP, you can unsubscribe here