Retailer Next has reported an 18% hike in profits after seeing a turnaround in sales following four years of declines. The group posted pre-tax profits of £505 million in the 12 months to January, up on the £428.8 million seen a year earlier. Next thanked better-than-feared consumer spending and efforts to improve product ranges for [...]

Tommy Hilfiger has been sold to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3bn (£2bn). Tommy Hilfiger (now 58) will stay with the company as its “principal designer and visionary”. Hilfiger’s current owners, the private equity firm Apax Partners, bought the company four years ago for $1.9bn. An attempt to refloat the business on the stock market was scrapped [...]

If licensees can source goods cheaply and sell them profitably in £ sterling surely this is a bonanza time as the weakness of the £ sterling encourages overseas buyers to look at UK goods. We have heard of some UK based licensees being approached by licensees based overseas to source products. Alternatively UK based licensees [...]

SeaWorld has long restricted its trainers from swimming with Tilikum, the 6-ton killer whale that pulled trainer Dawn Brancheau to her death last week. However they continue to exploit the animals for their own financial benefit. What has this got to do with Licensing you may ask? Well many of the caged animals have become [...]