Marks & Spencer full-year profit expected to miss City forecasts
MARKS AND SPENCER is expected to become the latest retailer to scale back on its growth targets when it posts preliminary full-year results tomorrow that are forecast to fall short of expectations.
Two years ago, Britain’s biggest clothing retailer set itself an ambitious target to increase its sales by between £1.6bn to £2.5bn a year by 2013-14.
City analysts, however, have forecast that M&S will fall short of this target, with sales of £10.9bn in 2013-2014 as squeezed consumer spending continues to take its toll on retailers.
Liberum Capital analyst Vicki Land said: “Our view is that unless self-help or UK consumption start to accelerate, we believe that M&S will struggle to reverse the margin declines of the past four years”.
A consensus of analysts expect the company to report pre-tax profits of £694m for the year to 31 March, down three per cent on the previous year, on total sales of £9.9bn.
Chief executive Marc Bolland is also expected to say that the wet weather in April impacted trading.