2015年经济学人 百货商店 中式快餐

Department stores

Chinese takeaway

Old British brands get a lift in Asia

CLARKS shoes have more cachet with Chinese shoppers than with British ones.

DAKS, an upmarket British clothing brand, has two stores in Britain but sells through 43 in Asia.

Marks & Spencer is labouring to coax¹ matronly Britons back into its shops, but plans to open 250 new ones overseas.

Now House of Fraser, a 165-year-old department-store chain, is to seek more growth and glamour² abroad than it can find at home.

Yuan Yafei,China's joint³ 92nd-richest person, says he wants to “bring the House of Fraser to the whole China”.

Nanjing Xinjiekou, a department store controlled by his Sanpower Group, is to take an 89% stake, valuing House of Fraser at 450m($754m).

A complication is Mike Ashley, owner of the Sports Direct chain of sportswear shops (and of Newcastle United football club),

who snapped up an 11% stake in House of Fraser after Sanpower made its offer. His intentions are unclear.

House of Fraser is not a glittering prize. It is burdened with debt and a deficit⁴ in its pension plan.

The holding company that owns it reported a pre-tax loss of 8.2min the year ending January 2013.

Trading has perked⁵ up, thanks to online sales and popular own-label products. Last Christmas was its “best ever”.

But the layout of some of House of Fraser's 60 stores is “not ideal”, says Tony Shiret, a retail⁶ analyst⁷ at Espirito Santo Investment Bank.

It will take a lot of investment to spruce them up.

Department stores have suffered since the 1970s, when customers started driving out of town to buy big-ticket items such as televisions.

Harrods and Selfridges have firmly positioned themselves as purveyors of luxury goods.

House of Fraser, along with Debenhams and Marks & Spencer, occupy less elevated ranks between them and “fast-fashion” retailers⁹ such as Primark.

The “murky middle” is an uncomfortable place for most brands, says Allyson Stewart-Allen, a marketing¹⁰ consultant¹¹.

Grocery giant Tesco is losing market share to discounters and upmarket emporia; its finance director quit on April 4th.

Chinaoffers a fresh start (though plenty of British retailers, including Tesco, have found the going hard there).

Mr Yuan hopes that House of Fraser's British heritage and its royal warrant will entranceChina's burgeoning¹² consumer class.

Hong Kong's Fung brothers made a similar bet by buying Gieves & Hawkes, a Savile Row tailor, in 2012.

Department stores may be past their prime inBritain, but inChinatheir sales will grow by more than 38% by 2019, predicts Verdict, a retail consultancy.

Mr Ashley's thinking is more difficult to discern. Does he hope to make a quick profit,

as he did in January after Sports Direct bought, and then quickly re-sold, a 4.6% stake in Debenhams?

(He has swapped¹³ his holding for the right to buy 6.6% of the retailer⁸ if its share price falls to a certain level.)

Perhaps he wants another outlet¹⁴ for flogging sportswear.

House of Fraser has challenged Mr Ashley's purchase, saying the seller should have offered the stake to other shareholders¹⁵ first.

In the 1980s House of Fraser was the subject of a histrionic row between a British tycoon¹⁶,

Tiny Rowland, who coveted¹⁷ the company, and an Egyptian investor¹⁸, Mohamed Al Fayed, who bought it.

The retailer hopes to sell itself more quietly this time.

1 coax   

v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取

参考例句：

• I had to coax the information out of him.我得用好话套出他掌握的情况。
• He tried to coax the secret from me.他试图哄骗我说出秘方。

2 glamour   

n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住

参考例句：

• Foreign travel has lost its glamour for her.到国外旅行对她已失去吸引力了。
• The moonlight cast a glamour over the scene.月光给景色增添了魅力。

3 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

4 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

5 perked   

（使）活跃( perk的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）增值； 使更有趣

参考例句：

• The recent demand for houses has perked up the prices. 最近对住房的需求使房价上涨了。
• You've perked up since this morning. 你今天上午精神就好多了。

6 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

7 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

8 retailer   

n.零售商(人)

参考例句：

• What are the retailer requirements?零售商会有哪些要求呢？
• The retailer has assembled a team in Shanghai to examine the question.这家零售商在上海组建了一支团队研究这个问题。

9 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。

10 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

11 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

12 burgeoning   

adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝）

参考例句：

• Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句

13 swapped   

交换（工作）( swap的过去式和过去分词 )； 用…替换，把…换成，掉换（过来）

参考例句：

• I liked her coat and she liked mine, so we swapped. 我喜欢她的外套，她喜欢我的外套，于是我们就交换了。
• At half-time the manager swapped some of the players around. 经理在半场时把几名队员换下了场。

14 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

15 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

16 tycoon   

n.有钱有势的企业家，大亨

参考例句：

• The tycoon is on the verge of bankruptcy.那名大亨濒临破产的边缘。
• The tycoon has many servants to minister to his needs.那位大亨有很多人服侍他。

17 coveted   

adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图

参考例句：

• He had long coveted the chance to work with a famous musician. 他一直渴望有机会与著名音乐家一起工作。
• Ther other boys coveted his new bat. 其他的男孩都想得到他的新球棒。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。