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M&S profit hits £1bn

20/05/2008

Marks & Spencer pre-tax profit jumped over £1 billion last year, but there will be no bonus, chief executive Stuart Rose said.

This represents the first time the company has delivered over £1 billion of profit before tax for a decade and is a 20.5 per cent rise from last year.

However, the retailer did not meet its internal targets set in April 2007 and therefore there will be no bonus for the management team – although store staff will share £12.8 million in recognition of their hard work, M&S said.

Over the year, sales were up 5.1 per cent to £9 billion, with UK sales up 4.2 per cent and international sales up 16.8 per cent.

However, M&S was not immune from the high street downturn over the year. Like-for-like sales fell 0.5 per cent overall, and 0.4 per cent in food.

Like-for-likes have worsened over the last few weeks – fourth quarter sales were down 1.7 per cent, with general merchandise falling 3.1 per cent and food dipping 0.5 per cent.

"Trading for the first seven weeks of the year has been mixed," Mr Rose admitted.

"April was, as expected, a difficult month, reflecting dramatically different weather patterns compared with the same period last year.

"May to date has shown a marked improvement although we remain cautious about consumer sentiment. We will update on our first quarter sales on July 9th 2008."

M&S said tight stock control and management of costs would help it through the challenging times ahead.

The group also said it plans to invest £800-900 million this year in the business to expand into new product areas both at home and abroad.

Over the coming year, the company expects to add around 5.5 per cent of new space in the UK, 15-20 per cent internationally, and improve its gross margin by 50 basis points.