Marks & Spencer – Awaiting Sir Archie

Marks & Spencer M&S must be desperately awaiting the arrival of Archie Norman in the hope that he can achieve the turn round which has so far eluded the company. Todays results paint a sorry picture for a company which was once the leading presence on the UK high street.Profit before tax for the year […]

Archie Norman Will Need More Than Singles Nights To Save Marks

Archie Norman made his name, not as the boss of ASDA but as the man who saved ASDA, and he was brilliant enough to do so virtually overnight. ASDA had taken the established supermarkets by storm  and given them hard lessons in retailing. Then, all of a sudden for no apparent reason, shoppers were deserting […]

The High Street – Still Alive And Kicking But Online Threat Grows

Marks & Spencer MKS gives a very brief summary of its trading for the 13 weeks to the 31st December. Group sales rose by 5.9% on a reported basis. Food did well with a rise of 5.6% or 0.6% on a like for like basis and  continuing to increase its market share. Sales in clothing […]

CEO admits Marks Business Is Unsustainable

Marks & Spencer MKS  CEO Steve Rowe openly admits in todays strategic update that Marks business is not sustainable and needs to be built into one that is and one which will also delight its customers. If its stores in Greece are anything to go by he is dead right and it is going to […]

Sports Direct Disappoints – Targets For Staff Rewards To Be Reduced

Sports Direct SPD has not had a good year. It openly admits that the year to 24th April was disappointing, so disappointing in fact that it  failed to reach the targets for the share based incentive scheme for eligible staff which is part of the company’s “high performance and reward culture”.  So what are they […]

Retailers On The Rebound

Marks & Spencer MKS what a pleasure it is to see a shopkeeper back in charge of Marks and not just any old shopkeeper but one who knows the business inside out, one who has started turning it round in a very short time and who sounds confident and is confident that he can do […]

Warmest For Over 350 Years and Bonmarche Blames The Cold

Bonmarche BON. Lame excuses from the CEO of Bonmarche as he  blames the cold winter weather for a poor 4th quarter performance. Figures released today show that the winter of 2016 will have been the warmest for over 350 years, so pull the other one Mr. Butterwick. The year got off to a good start […]

Retailers Part 2 – Shedding A Little Light on M&S

It is on the borders that the first signs usually appear of an empire starting to collapse. Thus Nero’s fiddling and pyromanics were the forerunners of Goths,Visigoths and other alien tribes hacking away at the denuded borders of the once great Roman empire. The same applies to giant supermarkets. Once head office has lost the plot it shows […]