Breakfast briefing: Retail news on BHS, Holland and Barrett and more

Goldman’s European chief under pressure to face MPs

Goldman Sachs’ European co-head Michael Sherwood has come under pressure to face MPs probing the collapse of high street retailer BHS, a year after it was sold by Arcadia’s Sir Philip Green.

MPs said last week they are in talks to call Sherwood to appear before them along with Anthony Gutman, the co-head of European investment banking services who has already given evidence once, and Michael Casey, a London-based managing director.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has labelled evidence provided to parliament by former BHS owner Dominic Chappell as “incorrect”, days after a former financial adviser to the retailer slammed Chappell as a “Premier League liar”.

Chappell, a former racing driver who agreed at the hearing that he had “no retail experience”, acquired BHS from Sir Philip Green for £1 in March 2015.

Holland & Barrett requests price cuts from suppliers

Holland & Barrett has told its suppliers that it may no longer work with suppliers that are refusing to renegotiate their prices, The Times reported.

The health retailer said that there were about “30 or 40” suppliers who refused to change their terms after it asked for a 5% reduction in prices.

Holland & Barrett chief executive Peter Aldis said: “We are investing massively in this business and the suppliers benefit from that, but we were seeing a significant erosion of margin and ultimately that will hurt the business, so we felt that we needed to talk to everybody about that.

“The majority of our suppliers have seen this as an opportunity to come in and talk about the future and even to negotiate some new terms [for their benefit]. There are about 30 to 40 suppliers who are not prepared to provide anything and a tranche in the middle who have done nothing yet.

“We don't’ want to delist suppliers but we won’t be dealing with anyone who won’t think about how we can best work together in the future.”

Sports Direct gets ASA ban for false Arsenal FC shirt promotion

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has disapproved a promotion from Sports Direct after a customer accused that a marked down Arsenal shirt was for sale under “misleading” conditions.

The Puma home shirt had been advertised through a page on Sports Direct’s website, which suggested the price of £42. Smaller text accompanying the promotion and below the quoted price stated ‘£59.99’ and ‘You save: £17.99’, respectively.

Challenging the advertisement, the complainant mentioned that the product had never been sold on the website for £59.99 and confronted whether the corresponding savings claims were correct or if they could be demonstrated.