Marks & Spencer’s ‘knicker queen’ Janie Schaffer has quit barely three months after taking over as the head of lingerie and beauty, as the retailer suffers yet another setback in its attempt to restore the ailing business. Janie Schaffer joined M&S in January from luxury lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret. It is widely believed that Janie Schaffer was frustrated with the lack of opportunity that she was supposedly given to overhaul…

Tesco has withdrawn from the US market after the supermarket chain’s profits fell 52% since the early 1990s. The exit from the US market has cost Tesco more than £1bn at a time when the Britain’s biggest retailer is experiencing slowdown in sales at home front too. After indicating US market exit in December last year, Tesco will be shutting down 199 Fresh & Easy stores, which have posted zero…

British supermarkets have cut petrol prices by 2-3p a litre as oil prices have plunged to a 12-month low. The petrol price cut of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s will be up to 2p a litre while the Morrison petrol price cut will be 3p a litre. The newest Asda petrol price cut will make its customers shell out no more than 133.7p a litre at any of its petrol stations….

JC Penney has employed Blackstone Group to replenish its dwindling cash reserves in a first move by Mike Ullman, who was reinstated as chief executive this week following the ouster of Ron Johnson, a much-vaunted Apple veteran whose reform plans backfired, leading to a chaotic situation in the company. JC Penney now wishes to raise $1bn capital in cash with an option of selling a minority stake in the US…

Marks and Spencer (M&S) has registered seventh quarterly loss on the trot. But the company isn’t looking down on this. It says, it’s still got support of the shareholders who believe in it and would soon bounce back. Marc Bolland, chief executive, Marks and Spencer, who is in the firing line to up the performance, is positive and has said that though, sales in the key merchandise fell by 3.8%,…

Morrisons plans to cut 700 jobs after last year’s fall in profits at the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain as new cash counting machines are being installed in stores, making 689 cash office managers and supervisors’ jobs redundant. The latest round of job cuts comes six months after 165 jobs were scrapped at Morrisons’ Bradford headquarters when its financial transaction processing service was outsourced to an Indian firm.

Axminster Carpets has been saved from collapse by a consortium of local business people in Devon led by private investor Stephen Boyd, chairman of leather-maker Pittards, to resurrect the 258-year-old business and brand which supplied carpets for government and loyalty. Although the price paid to save Axminster has not been disclosed, the move has effectively saved 100 jobs, although 300 were made redundant last month. Axminster was saved after thousands…

HMV will be salvaged by Hilco in a £50m deal which would see the restructuring firm acquire about 140 stores and effectively saving 2,500 jobs at the UK’s last major high street DVD and CD chain. Hilco is all set to sign a deal this morning which will see it taking over around 130 HMV-branded stores and nine outlets that trade under the cut-price music brand Fopp.

Domino’s Pizza has reported a strong rise in first quarter sales, boosted by new offerings and promotions, as Britain’s cold snap led people to stay indoors. Domino’s Pizza said that new product launches such as the ‘Hit Dog Stuffed Crust’ has persuaded customers to order in, pushing sales to £164m for the 13 week period to March 31. The fast food chain also reported a whooping rise of 38.4% in online orders…

KFC is all set to create 1,600 jobs in the UK and Ireland in 2013 in an effort to open more than 40 restaurants and spend £40m to give 160 of its outlets a makeover. The refurbishment will be co-funded by franchisees. This year’s new outlets will boost KFC’s total number of UK and Ireland restaurants to nearly 900. KFC aims to eventually have a total of 1,200 outlets in the two…