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Text size [+][-]  Thursday July 2 2009GLOBAL EDITION

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02 Jul 2008 12:02

Brace yourself

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.
The UK retailer’s shares plummeted after it warned on profits. M&S's clothes and food are simply too expensive for these stagflationary times. But if things look bad at M&S, just wait until the downturn hits its more financially constrained peers.

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