M&S sales still on the slide

SALES are still falling at Marks & Spencer, the company revealed today, sparking fresh fears for the High Street stores group's recovery.

The company confirmed today that half-year profits will be between £285m-295m, in line with City forecasts but well down from the £325m achieved in the same period last year.

Although the headline profit figure will provide some comfort for analysts, the fact that clothing sales are still falling is bad news for chief executive Stuart Rose.

M&S revealed a 7.7% decline on the clothing side, countering expectations that the launch of various new autumn ranges might have reversed the downward trend.

Worse was a 2.6% drop in like-for-like food sales in the 12 weeks to 2 October. This was a steeper fall than the 2% drop in the previous ten-week period.

The trading update shows the full extent of the task facing Rose and comes just a day after market figures from industry analysts Verdict showed the company is lagging behind Next, Asda and Tesco in the childrenswear market.

Rose's restructuring continues, however, and his reorganisation strategy, unveiled during the summer when the business was fighting off a £9bn takeover bid from retail entrepreneur Philip Green.

The company has completed the £125m acquisition of women's fashion label Per Una, keeping its design-guru owner George Davies at the helm.

The presence of Davies is seen as key to the success of Per Una – Davies made his name in the early 1980s with the launch of Next, now one of M&S's major rivals in the clothing sector.

Rose is also looking for a revitalisation in M&S's womenswear business. Kate Bostock joined the company last week to run the womenswear operation, widely seen as a hugely challenging task.

Bostock was previously product director for the George at Asda clothing range and producer of womenswear at Next.

Bostock could be a breath of fresh air at M&S which is struggling to fight off competition from High Street rivals and supermarkets, though sales have been disappointing despite the introduction of new ranges.

Just 24 hours after M&S's latest tale of woe, would-be bidder Green will be releasing results for his Bhs stores chain.

The figures have been brought forward from Friday to tomorrow, perhaps because the Monaco-based billionaire wants to highlight the contrast between the fortunes of the two groups.

While tomorrow's figures may not maintain the spectacular performance since Green bought the business for a song four years ago, they will still leave M&S in the shade, with analysts expecting a steady improvement in sales and profits.

Since bowing out of the M&S bid, Green has vowed to step up the pressure on M&S, taking his fight to the High Street.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in