In The News

His lawyers Lane Neave say under the franchise agreement, Thomas was supposed to receive two weeks' training, during which he would be paid by MGC, and MGC was supposed to provide a list of customers that would return about $1000 a week initially.

The business was supposed to start on September 25 but no training and no customers came in the first few weeks.

Thomas said he began to worry and Smith was increasingly more difficult to contact.

When he did talk with Smith, he "was always promising something would happen next week."

Masterton employment lawyer Jills Angus Burney said she had received information that Lucas had been forced to sell by Gull and Night 'n Day after boycott calls.

"He has been required to relinquish his franchise because the parties to the franchise are unhappy with the financial impact of the publicity around the illegal deductions."

Night 'n Day chief executive Tony Allison denied forcing Lucas to sell. "I wouldn't say we brought it about, I'd say Nick brought it about . . . Nick came to his own conclusions."

Allison conceded the bad publicity had affected sales nationally, but said it was too soon to blame anyone, as an investigation was still under way.

One of Aviva's loan recipients, a beneficiary, paid $8000 over 18 months to rent a "substantial" list of household items from Mr Rental in Blenheim Rd, she said.

"I believe she [thought] it was a rent-to-buy situation. Yes, it's consumer responsibility but what if [people] don't understand the language? I genuinely think the option to rent is good for some circumstances [but] whose responsibility is it to say, 'How long do you want it for?'

'At the company's annual meeting in Auckland yesterday, chairman Mark Darrow said the Veritas board would investigate a buy-back as part of a review of its capital structure early next year. Shares in Veritas last traded at $1.25, below the $1.30 price it listed at after buying the Mad Butcher chain in May last year.'

In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange this afternoon, RFG said the share purchase agreement (SPA) for the La Porchetta deal has been terminated but discussions are continuing.

“The SPA was subject to a number of conditions, including satisfactory completion of the company’s due diligence investigations,” said RFG.

“RFG advises that the foregoing condition has been satisfied, and as a consequence, the SPA has been terminated.”

“Notwithstanding the forgoing, RRG is presenting engaging with the La Porchetta vendors in connection with those matters which have influenced the above outcome, and will keep the market advised of any future developments.”

The decision by Buddle Findlay to act for MPM while still acting for Mike Pero in Christchurch was first challenged by Pero back in June, he said.

"I raised the conflict of interest immediately when I heard they had decided to act for and against me. I thought from the beginning they could not possibly be serious.

"I spent weeks trying to persuade Buddle Findlay against what I considered to be unethical," he said.

'Group Operating Revenue was up 27.1 percent to $8.5M with BurgerFuel Total System Sales up 29.4 percent to a record $38.6M for the 6-month period. System sales growth continues and BurgerFuel rolling weekly system sales are now in excess of $1.5M per week.

'... although the IAC mentioned above requires Immigration officers to consider each case “holistically” – looking for instance at the size of the operation, the organisation of the branch where the applicant works and so on – to decide how much responsibility they actually have, in fact we see them focusing on ticking off the Core Tasks of the job (according to ANZSCO) as not being performed by the applicant, even though the person actually exercises considerable skill to run a department of a large store.  We therefore see the ludicrous situation that someone who manages a High Street clothing shop with 2 other staff will be approved Residence, while another person with 20 staff to run, who is required to apply the complex policies of a division of a department store, will be declined.

Why is this situation so fatal?  Well, according to immigration Policy the ANZSCO is a Bible which lists every job that exists.  In the Skilled Migrant system, your job has to match some occupation on the ANZSCO.  In the case of retail, you are either  a Retail Manager – which is “skilled employment” and gets you points toward Residence – or you are a Retail Supervisor who runs a team of staff and whose job is not skilled enough, so you don’t get points.  And in almost all cases you must have skilled employment before they will give you Residence. In many cases whole application fail on this point alone.'

Shingle Inn currently operates a network of over 45 cafés across Australia. Now the award-winning franchise is inviting Kiwis to join the family and embrace the culture and tradition that have become part of the quintessential Shingle Inn café experience.

In an ideal world he would love to see his franchise have some benefit to the community at large.

Brian's offered it to a local wananga (education provider) believing it could give students hands-on experience of businesses operations, but found too many obstacles in the way.

A Rotary group was also offered the opportunity to broker its sale but they were not interested, he says.

Brian says: “If there's a creative way of doing some good for the community then I'm open to it.

Christchurch businessman Mike Pero is facing High Court action from the mortgage broking company he set up more than two decades ago and which still bears his name.

The nature of Mike Pero Mortgages' claim against its founder, although surfacing during an Auckland hearing yesterday, was kept under wraps by Associate Judge John Matthews, who did not permit the reporting of it.

Although he is its public face, Pero does not own any of the mortgage business and left its board in June of this year.

Snapping up of Gloria Jean's upped its store count by 358 domestically and 420 around the world, making Retail Food Group the "clear leader in retail food franchises specialising in coffee", said chief executive Tony Alford.

The acquisition triples its roasting capacity, but Gloria Jean's will retain its usual coffee blends and flavours.

"Each of our Brand Systems has a specific, unique blend which does differ," he said. "Our capacity to deliver ... unique coffee flavour profile further strengthens opportunities for differentiation between brands."

The coffee chain is expected to rake in $11.8 million in earnings before interest and tax in the 2015 financial year and $6.3 million in profit. It has long been the target of the company.

"We have recognised the opportunity to capitalise on coffee excellence, while also expanding into freshly prepared food lines as major elements to drive franchisee sales," Mr Alford said.

Last week McDonald’s revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% on last year in a set of results that went beyond Wall Street’s worst nightmares and were swiftly characterised as atrocious.

Problems are piling up almost everywhere. In China, sales plunged by 23% after a food scare when local media showed workers apparently caught on camera at a local supplier, Shanghai Husi Food, claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in products destined for McDonald’s and KFC.

In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of turmoil in Ukraine and the sour anti-western mood in Russia that has seen US companies caught in the political crossfire. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors in apparently politically motivated food-safety checks. Ten have been closed.

But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis runs deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.

McDonald’s has chalked up 12 straight months of declining sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill – which, just the day before McDonald’s revealed its horrible sales figures, announced 20% growth in revenues. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonald’s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011, according to food analysts Technomic, while the number of 22-to-37-year-olds visiting has not grown.

The pair visited the annual food convention in Houten in The Netherlands, where they asked unwitting gastronomic experts to taste samples of McDonald’s food and offer their opinions on this “new, organic alternative to fast food”.

“Delicious”, “fresh”, “tasty” and ”firm” are just some of the adjectives used by the food critics in a video posted on YouTube.

“It’s nice and firm, it has a good bite,” says one.

Another adds: “It rolls around the tongue nicely; if it were wine I’d say it’s fine.”

The foodies were then cajoled into making a direct comparison with McDonald's.  Asked how the “organic” fare shapes up in comparison to the fast food giant, one individual says: “It’s definitely a lot tastier than McDonald's, you can just tell this is a lot more pure.”

And another replies: “It tastes a lot better, and the fact that it’s organic is definitely a good thing. It’s just better for you. The taste is a lot richer.”

"We only had one low volume store [in Iraq], so this is not material to our position," chief executive Josef Roberts told shareholders at the firm's annual meeting last month. "It's unfortunate that Iraq has slipped back into this situation as it was a country with enormous potential, but as we can longer enter that country for safety reasons, its best we cease activity there, which we have now done."

He said the situation in Libya was similar to Iraq.

"We haven't proceeded to enter that country and with recent bombings there - again, it's off the radar for future activity and like Iraq this will have little effect on our earnings."

The fireworks sales period runs from November 2 to 5, and McMullin said Hell stores would extend their opening hours until midnight on those days.

Asked if that meant staff might get intoxicated people wanting fireworks delivered, McMullin said all staff have been trained to handle those situations.

"We'll be very careful," he said.

"You can't sell to under-18s, you can't sell to intoxicated people or people under the influence of drugs."

The main motivation for dipping into the fireworks market was revenue.

"There are good sales in fireworks," McMullin said.

"Just look at The Warehouse, they sell a hell of a lot of fireworks over Guy Fawkes."

Alcohol Drug Association of New Zealand chief executive Paul Rout said Liquorland's use of the word "help" in the new slogan was cynical considering one of the major contributing factors to alcohol-related problems in New Zealand is the easy of access to cheap liquor through off-licence retailers.

"They should stop using that word because I think it's a contradiction in terms of what they actually do," Rout said.

The slogan features the kind of wording typically used by support agencies trying to help problem drinkers and minimise the alcohol harm, he said.

"It's buying into a language and a concept that people warm to but in fact isn't genuine or real."

Since 2007, McDonald's has reduced its share of company-run restaurants to 19% from 23%, today operating 6,435 of its 33,510 restaurants world-wide, according to company data.

"It's making the company more profitable," says Richard Adams, a former McDonald's Corp. executive who runs a San Diego-based consulting company for McDonald's franchisees.

"The franchisee has more skin in the game," says William Ackman, a hedge-fund founder who is soon to be one of Burger King's newest investors through his fund's interest in Justice Holdings Ltd., a UK-listed investment vehicle. "He's going to put his heart and soul into it."

But Robert Zarco, a Miami-based franchise attorney, says unloading most or all company-owned locations to franchisees could signal that the franchiser lacks "confidence in its own brand."