Marks & Spencer has reported its first rise in underlying pre-tax profit under its chief executive Marc Bolland. The results are the first rise in profits in four years and come as the group’s troubled general merchandise division started to show signs of a turnaround. In the year to March 28th 2015, group sales rose 0.4% to £10.3 billion, with the food business outperforming in a difficult market and general merchandise sales seeing continued improvement despite not quite meeting expectations. Meanwhile, sales at M&S.com were back in growth following disruption earlier in the year.
Marc Bolland, chief executive, said: “We made good progress in three of our four key priorities for the year. In Food, we had an outstanding year in a difficult market. In GM, we significantly increased the gross margin, and, while sales performance was below our expectations, we returned to growth in the fourth quarter.
“We continued to control costs and capital expenditure tightly, resulting in significantly improved free cash flow.
“We are transforming M&S into a stronger, more agile business – putting the right infrastructure, capabilities and talent in place to drive our strategic priorities.”
Robert Swannell, chairman, said: "We are a more capable business following a sustained period of investment in our infrastructure and in our people. Our focus continues to be on delivery of the strategy and improvement in shareholder returns.
“In line with our policy, the board is recommending a final dividend of 11.6p per share, resulting in a full year dividend of 18p, 5.9% up on last year. In the context of continuing increased free cash flow in the business we are also pleased to announce the start of an ongoing programme of enhanced returns for shareholders with a share buyback programme of £150 million in the current year."
Search jobs with M&S here >>
