*** Tesco Swingers Club ***

This is in today's Telegraph online web pages.

Retailers continue to feel the pinch

The pincer movement that retailers find themselves in will continue in 2006.
Rents, rates and fuel prices are increasing sharply as sales growth stagnates
and deflation continues apace, meaning that margins will fall.

Worryingly, there are few signs that consumer spending will pick up next year,
with stealth taxes kicking in. Those with global scale (Tesco) will get bigger.
Decent niche brands will thrive too. But a raft of mid-market big space players
could be heading for a fall. This is a structural, not a cyclical, issue.

James Hall


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------