Marks & Spencer, Retail industry, Business Business | The Guardian
The retail giant has clocked up 12 consecutive quarters of sales growth but it must remember mistakes of the pastIt is three years exactly since Archie Norman, the chair, said he’d spotted “green shoots” of recovery at Marks & Spencer, and, after a delay caused by the cost of living blight, a bloom has indeed appeared. Pre-tax profits rose 41% last year to £672m (or 58% to £716m ignoring “adjusting” items). Chief executive Stuart Machin, switching the metaphors from botanical to nautical, reckons there is “wind in our sails”.The performance is definitely radically improved. The only real blemishes were in the international division, where the collection of overseas franchises and partnerships seems to have been an afterthought to the self-help programme at home, and at the joint venture with Ocado in food, which is producing the familiar sight of lively sales growth but bottom-line losses. Continue reading…
The retail giant has clocked up 12 consecutive quarters of sales growth but it must remember mistakes of the past
It is three years exactly since Archie Norman, the chair, said he’d spotted “green shoots” of recovery at Marks & Spencer, and, after a delay caused by the cost of living blight, a bloom has indeed appeared. Pre-tax profits rose 41% last year to £672m (or 58% to £716m ignoring “adjusting” items). Chief executive Stuart Machin, switching the metaphors from botanical to nautical, reckons there is “wind in our sails”.
The performance is definitely radically improved. The only real blemishes were in the international division, where the collection of overseas franchises and partnerships seems to have been an afterthought to the self-help programme at home, and at the joint venture with Ocado in food, which is producing the familiar sight of lively sales growth but bottom-line losses.
