{"id":1820943,"date":"2026-09-23T12:31:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/news\/coop-group-h1-loss-widens-southern-merger\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T12:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:23:34","slug":"coop-group-h1-loss-widens-southern-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/news\/coop-group-h1-loss-widens-southern-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-op Group’s first-half loss widens to \u00a345 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Costs rise despite a stronger balance sheet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Underlying costs increased 2% across the half, after the group absorbed \u00a378 million of additional headwinds, including higher employer National Insurance contributions, a rise carried by operators across the food and drink franchises recruiting in the UK<\/a> as much as by corporate estates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Net debt fell to \u00a3239 million from \u00a3317 million, aided by the \u00a3350 million sustainability bond, which attracted demand 3.3 times its size. Active membership grew 11% to 7.5 million over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/svg><\/div>
2026 is looking like a year of two halves for our Co-op. The first half was characterised by difficult markets and low consumer confidence<\/blockquote><\/div>

A QUOTE FROM<\/p>

Kate Allum<\/p>

interim chief executive, Co-op Group<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Southern Co-operative merger faces a competition hurdle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Competition and Markets Authority concluded the first phase of its review into the proposed merger on 15 September 2026, finding that the deal has resulted, or may be expected to result, in a substantial lessening of competition in some local markets. Co-op Group and Southern Co-operative now have the chance to offer undertakings addressing those concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without an acceptable remedy, the CMA has said it will refer the merger for an in-depth phase 2 investigation.
Neither party has said which local markets are affected. Overlapping catchments are the same question a franchised network settles through territory clauses in the franchise agreement<\/a> rather than through a regulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Costs rise despite a stronger balance sheet Underlying costs increased 2% across the half, after the group absorbed \u00a378 million of additional headwinds, including higher employer National Insurance contributions, a rise carried by operators across the food and drink franchises recruiting in the UK as much as by corporate estates. Net debt fell to \u00a3239 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":994,"featured_media":1820949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"Co-op Group's first-half loss widens to \u00a345m","_seopress_titles_desc":"Co-op Group's underlying loss widened to \u00a345 million in H1 2026 as revenue rose 2.4%, while its Southern Co-operative merger faces a CMA hurdle.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"content-type":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[816,891,3580],"tags":[],"type-de-post":[2066],"class_list":["post-1820943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-network-operations","category-industry-sectors","category-franchise-networks","type-de-post-articles-actualite"],"acf":[],"permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820950,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820943\/revisions\/1820950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1820949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820943"},{"taxonomy":"type-de-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-de-post?post=1820943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}