Updates

Marks & Spencer - High hopes for Autumn/Winter clothing range

August 2013

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

Final results for Marks & Spencer were a case of â€œafter the Lord Mayor's showâ€ following a well-received presentation of its new autumn / winter clothing ranges which caused the shares to spike to a new high of 491p, a full 276p above our recommendation price. Those results showed sales rising 1.3% to Â£10bn while underlying pretax profit was Â£665m, better than consensus forecast of Â£658m but lower than 2012's Â£706m. Eps was 32.7p (2012: 34.9p). In general merchandise, sales dipped 4.1% on a like-for-like basis reflecting difficult aggressive competitor promotions and terrible summer weather, but management kept mark-downs to a minimum to protect gross margin (up 45 basis points to 51.8%). The appointment of a new ...

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