Text size [+][-] Monday September 8 2008GLOBAL EDITION
Home > Marks & Spencer
By John Foley
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Shares in Marks & Spencer, the UK retailer, fell 20% on Wednesday after it said that its like-for-like sales fell 5.3% in the quarter ending June 28. M&S forecasted a weak market, and suggested profits would undershoot consensus estimates for the year. Among the worst-performing areas of the business was food, sales of which fell 4.5% on a like-for-like basis. Steven Esom, the director in charge of food, left with immediate effect. Sales of food account for around half of M&S’s roughly £9bn of annual sales.