Good morning. Retail sales unexpectedly fell last month, official data has shown.
Retail sales volumes fell by 0.3 per cent month-on-month in February, compared to a 1.9 per cent rise in January and forecasts of a 0.6 per cent rise by economists.
The data from the Office for National Statistics will cause more concerns that households are already being squeezed by rising inflation. Other one-off factors appear, however, to have dragged down sales, particularly higher spending in pubs and restaurants and disruption from Storm Dudley and Storm Eunice.
Food sales volumes fell by 0.2 per cent in February with large falls in alcohol and tobacco shop sales. This was potentially caused, though, by higher spending in pubs and restaurants as more people went out thanks to the end of Covid-19 restrictions, the ONS said.
Non-food sales rose by 0.6 per cent, with clothing up 13.2 per cent and department stores sales up 1.3 per cent. Other non-food shop sales dropped by 7 per cent and household goods sales fell by 2.5 per cent and the ONS said that some retailers had been hit by a reduction in high street footfall because of stormy weather and high winds.
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We’ll have a full story shortly on thetimes.co.uk.
In other news this morning, the new owner of GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes cannabis-based treatments, is to invest $100 million in a manufacturing facility in Kent. Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which agreed a $7.2 billion takeover of GW Pharmaceuticals a year ago, is to begin construction of the 60,000 sq ft factory at its existing site at Kent Science Park in Sittingbourne.
It is expected to create more than a hundred “highly skilled” jobs after it opens in 2024 and would be a boost to attempts by the government and industry to rebuild Britain’s drug manufacturing capabilities. Alex Ralph has the full story.
The boss of Arla, Britain’s biggest dairy company, has warned that supermarket milk prices need to rise by about a third to cover the spiralling costs facing farmers.
Arla, a dairy co-operative with 2,100 farmers in the UK, about a quarter of all dairy farmers, said that as part of its five-year strategy it was “calling time on cheap milk” and would end contracts that did not pay a return for farmers who needed to invest in their farms. Ashley Armstrong, our retail editor, has more.
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It’s also a busy morning of corporate announcements, with Smiths Group, Wickes, United Utilities, Petropavlovsk, Go-Ahead and Everyman Media among those updating the City.
Petropavlovsk has warned that it is “urgently considering with its advisers the implications for the group’s activities and financing arrangements” after Gazprombank was placed on the UK sanctions list. Petropavlovsk said the sanctions blocked the miner from selling gold to the bank and that other restrictions may make it “challenging” to find alternative purchasers. Petropavlovsk also has a $200 million loan with the bank and an $86.7 million revolving credit facility.
There is better news for long-suffering shareholders in the transport group Go-Ahead. It has been awarded a three-year “national rail contract” by the government to operate the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern services. The management contract, which replaces the old franchise system, is worth a fee of £8.8 million a year plus an additional performance fee of up to £22.9 million a year.
That’s it from me today. Have a great weekend. Richard Fletcher will be back in your inbox on Monday morning. In the meantime, please do send your thoughts, observations (and corrections) to me at graham.ruddick@thetimes.co.uk and follow me on Twitter @grahamtruddick.
Graham