Will Marks & Spencer ever be the same again?
UK retail giant Marks & Spencer is expected to report full-year pre-tax profits of £628 million this week, up 4% on the previous year. However, this will be a last set of results announced under the stewardship of Sir Stuart Rose with many expecting a radical overhaul of the business in the medium to longer term. So what is happening at Marks & Spencer?
Despite the fact that Sir Stuart Rose has successfully navigated the company through one of its most difficult periods there are expectations that new chief executive Marc Bolland will revitalise and refocus the operation. One potential pointer emerged last week when Investec Securities issued a broker note with five key recommendations. The broker believes that Marks & Spencer need to develop a fuller range of products, introduced an online food service, restructure its property portfolio, speed up the supply chain and considered a fund-raising to strengthen the balance sheet.
Whether or not the new chief executive takes these recommendations on board is open to debate but there is little doubt that the Marks & Spencer we see today will be very different to the one we see in two years time.
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