Updates

Marks & Spencer - Sharp fall in net debt

July 2010

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.

Outgoing chairman and chief executive, Stuart Rose presided over a respectable set of full year results with adjusted pretax profit rising almost 15% to Â£695m on revenues, which rose 5.2% to Â£9.5bn. Eps increased 18% to 33p. Helped mainly by a reduction in capital expenditure from Â£652m to Â£389m, net debt fell from Â£2.5bn to Â£2.07bn.As previously unveiled in its year-end trading update, general merchandise performed well with sales up 4% largely thanks to a strong Q4, while gross margins rose 0.7% thanks to better sourcing and tight cost controls. A slight increase in market share to 11% meant that it retained its market leading position in clothing. In Marks' other main division, food, sales rose 1.8%, but this was o ...

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With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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