His view is similar to Lord Wolfson at Next, who has moved a number of his clothes shops out of town centres to retail parks. Currenly over 14pc of shops in Britain are vacant as many retailers find it hard to cope with high business rates, high rents and low customer numbers. Some campaigners, notably Mary Portas, says expensive parking in town centres is partly to blame.
Alongside the store closures, the company published a set of full-year results that slightly beat analysts’ expectations, and which suggested that trading had improved in recent months at its core UK and nordic markets. It said television and white goods sales had been surprisingly strong.
However, the company was hit by substantial financial write-downs at its Greek, Italian and Pixmania online retail business. The write down totalled £190m.
The group made a pre-tax loss of £119m, an improvement in the loss of £224m made the year before, when it was also hit by write-downs.
On an underlining basis profits slid from £85.3m to £70.8m, on turnover unchanged at £8.19bn.
It has vowed to save £90m a year by merging its PC-World and Currys shops.
Mr James suggested Dixons was not wedded to Italy or Turkey, following its departure from Spain last year. He said: “I’m committed to making the business in Italy more successful,” but added that he wanted to operate only in countries where Dixons was a market leader, which it is not the case in Italy and Turkey.
Most analysts were upbeat about the company’s performance in Britain and at its Elkjop group, based in Denmark.
David Jeary at Investec said: “This was a very positive and forward-looking maiden prelims presentation from the incoming chief executive.”
Mr James said that he was convinced that, despite cutting back on shops, multichannel retailers that ran websites as well as physical stores could ultimately perform more profitably that pure online retailers such as Amazon.
“I’m convinced our model is stronger than ever,” he said pointing out that 82pc of shop purchases involved a trip to the website as well. He said that the discount that online players offered to customers had fallen significantly from a peak of 22pc a few years ago to just 6.5pc on average.
“And in some categories it is zero.” He explained that suppliers were prepared to offer better prices to retailers that could display their products effectively in shops.
The shares climbed 1.18p to 17.18p.
Miley Cyrus is skin a spending mood - The Sun
The actress/singer, 19, exposed her skin to the warm LA sunshine as she ventured out on a shopping spree.
And she gave bystanders plenty to gawp at in a crop top and tiny cut-off white denim shorts.
Miley wore her hair in a lazy bun atop her bonce and wrapped a red shirt around her trim waist, putting on the top when she hit the cool conditioned air of an American Apparel store.
The miniscule size of her shorts was all the more evident when she bent down to sift through the stock, parading a large portion of her pert rear in the process.
The star – who also forewent a bra for her day trip – showed off her huge diamond engagement rock on her wedding finger.
The sparkly 3.5-carat ring is said to have set back fiancé Liam Hemsworth, 22, around £160,000.
Miley accepted the actor’s proposal earlier this month, subsequently revealing: “I'm so happy to be engaged and look forward to a life of happiness with Liam.”
The couple met on the set of soppy 2009 movie The Last Song, and Liam admitted he couldn’t help falling in love with the singer-actress during the shoot.
He said: "What happened happened, and we've been together since.
"She makes me really happy. When you start, you want to be professional, but when you're filming those scenes with someone and pretending to love them, you're not human if you don't feel something."
Is America Ready to Label Boko Haram a Terrorist Organisation? - ibtimes.co.uk
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The three native Nigerians that the US has in its sights are: Abubakar Shekau, 43, a Boko Haram leader who reportedly aligned himself with al-Qaida in a video message; Abubakar Adam Kambar, 35; and Khalid al-Barnawi, aged 36.
Designating them as terrorists will freeze any assets they have in the US and bar any US citizen from conducting transactions with them.
President Barak Obama and the state department have been under pressure to take act stronger against the Islamist terrorist sect for months and formally include it on its terrorist watch list.
Republican senator Scott Brown wrote to secretary of state Hillary Clinton, urging her to take action against the group. But 20 American experts on Nigerian politics warned that branding Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation would empower the group on an international level and enhance its profile among al-Qaida and other militant groups.
"The network's focus has been overwhelmingly domestic, despite an August 2011 attack on the United Nations office in Abuja," they said.
The suicide bombing in Abuja is being used by lawmakers as evidence of the armed group's willingness to harm American interests.
Nigerian officials are concerned that putting Boko Haram on the watch list will make it more difficult for Nigerian citizens to travel to the US and affect bilateral trade between the two nations.
Defence minister Bello Halliru Mohammed said the plan to list Boko Haram as a "foreign terrorist organisation" would also affect dialogue between the group and the government.
"We are looking at a dialogue to establish the grievances of the Boko Haram. The attempt to declare them an international terrorist organisation will not be helpful," Mohammed said
"Boko Haram is not operating in America and America is not operating in Nigeria. They are not involved in our internal security operations, so I don't think it would be of much significance really in that respect. But we don't support it."
Peace talks between the federal government and the sect, which wants to impose Sharia law across Nigeria, were halted when a Boko Haram spokesman claimed he could not trust the government.
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UPDATE 2-CarMax skids as fewer new cars drive out of stores - Reuters
* Q1 EPS $0.52 vs est $0.53
* Q1 rev $2.77 bln vs est $2.82 bln
* Wholesale-vehicle revenue falls 2 pct
* New-vehicle sales fall 13 pct
* Shares fall as much as 7 pct
By Sagarika Jaisinghani
June 21 (Reuters) - CarMax Inc, a retailer of new and used cars, posted a quarterly profit that missed analysts' estimates as it sold fewer vehicles to wholesale customers and new cars to retail clients.
The largest retailer of used cars in the United States said although more people visited its stores during the quarter compared with a year earlier, the visits did not translate into as many buys.
"They've been challenged with the supply of 1 to 3 year old cars, which is their core (business)," Stephens's analyst Rick Nelson told Reuters.
There has also been some resistance among customers to high used-car prices, Nelson added.
Sales and gross profit at the company's wholesale unit were buoyed by higher used-vehicle pricing. However, prices have recently started declining, Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter wrote in a note to clients.
Revenue at the company's wholesale unit fell 2 percent to $467.8 million while prices declined marginally. Revenue at the segment had risen 32 percent and 52 percent in the first quarter of the two previous fiscal years.
CarMax's near-term earnings growth outlook is lackluster and may even disappoint, analyst Balter said and cut his price target on the stock to $30 from $34.
The company had warned last year that increased competition from new car dealers may slow growth.
CarMax, which competes with America's Car-Mart, said selling, general and administrative costs rose 5 percent, partly because of two new stores it opened during the quarter.
The Richmond, Virginia-based company said on a call with analysts that it expects costs to rise further as it plans to open ten stores in fiscal 2013. It has opened two of these stores in the current quarter.
Total retail sales of new vehicles fell 13 percent to 2,107 units in the quarter ended May 31, compared with a 14 percent growth in the year-ago period.
The company earned 52 cents per share on revenue of $2.77 billion for the quarter ended May 31. Analysts were expecting a profit of 53 cents per share on revenue of $2.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Shares of the company, which has a market value of about $6 billion, were down 7 percent at $25.91, making it one of the top percentage losers on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
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