173

News

Business News in Brief: Dansk Supermarked changes its name

TheCopenhagenPost
May 16th, 2018


This article is more than 6 years old.

In other news, Widex merges, Pandora stumbles and Uber is coming back to Denmark

Dansk Supermarked, the parent company behind supermarkets like Netto, Føtex, Bilka and others, announced that it is changing its corporate name to the Salling Group.

It the first name change for Dansk Supermarked since 1964, when A.P. Møller – Maersk became a co-owner. Møller – Mærsk sold its interest in the company to the Salling Fund in 2014. The Salling Fund is now the sole owner of the company which had revenues of just over 60 billion kroner in 2017.


Widex merges
Widex, the smallest of the Danish hearing aid manufacturers, is merging with competitor Sivantos. 
The merger with Sivantos will make the global company one of the world’s three largest manufacturers of hearing aids, with distribution in 125 markets and a turnover of 12 billion kroner. The merged entity will be owned by the EQT capital fund, which owns Sivantos, and the Tøpholm and Westermann families, who own Widex. Widex currently has about 4,250 employees, while Sivantos has 5,950 employees.

Pandora’s shares fall
Shares in jewellery maker Pandora fell sharply after the company reported lower than expected first-quarter profits and warned of a slowdown in China. Pandora said that its UK sales were flat and sales in the US fell by eight percent. Pandora said it hopes to boost sales by accelerating the number of designs being launched and increasing the number of self-owned stores rather than franchises.

READ MORE: Pandora sees disappointing growth

Uber looking to return to Denmark
Ride sharing app Uber says it plans to return to Denmark. The company first entered the Danish market in 2014 and had 2,000 drivers before complaints to police, protests and court cases forced them to withdraw in early 2017. Some drivers were actually fined for breaking taxi laws. Spokesperson Kristian Agerbo told Berlingske that Uber is returning with a different model. He declined to say when Uber would return, but said that the company is now working with the authorities and the taxi industry in hopes of a smoother ride this time around.


Share

Most popular

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive The Daily Post

















Latest Podcast

A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”