M&S reports fall in sales

Marks and Spencer have been racking up the column inches of late with much of the press coverage being less than positive.  During the past week or so there have been a number of reports discussing a drop in sales, a management re-organisation and now apparently a row brewing with frustrated shareholders over excessive executive pay.

The fact that like for like sales are significantly down has been blamed on the poor performance of Marks & Spencer’s clothing and general merchandise business which in turn cited poor weather and supply issues as causative factors.

The result of all this is a slip in share price and company value to £5.19bn which means that for the first time Next, a business with fewer shops, no food business and fewer customers, has now overtaken M&S in terms of company value (£5.24bn).  Next similarly to M&S also reported a drop in high street sales but this was more than countered by their strong on-line performance.

Moving on to executive pay - Mark Bolland, Chief Executive of M&S last year commented that he was delighted by the appointment of Laura Wade-Gery as an Executive Director although there has been a high level of controversy surrounding the £4million “golden hello” paid to her following her arrival from Tesco at a time when the business as a whole is under-performing.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18778782

http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/page.aspx?pointerid=1c334d0e7c3f483ab62a0b7ad685ba54