Marks & Spencer's Bolland buys some more time – again
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Version 0 of 1. It's a triumph! Marks & Spencer achieved no growth in same-store sales in the UK in the three months to September and profits for the half-year fell 10% to £290m. Not impressed? Nor should you be. Waiting for the Marc Bolland-inspired revival at M&S is turning into a marathon. We're more than two years into his reign but we've yet to see evidence that the vast sums of capital being thrown at the ambition of becoming an "international multi-channel retailer" will prove financially invigorating. The dividend is flat, return on capital is slipping and, to Bolland's discomfort, rivals in the transformation stakes are much further down the track. John Lewis, using its Waitrose stores as additional pick-up points, is on a roll. Next embarked on the multi-channel lark two decades ago via its Directory business. Then there's Asos, attracting the younger online fashion shoppers that M&S would love to have. The key point about M&S's half-year figures, however, is that the second quarter was much better than the first. Static like-for-like sales on the home front is a clear improvement on going backwards by 2.8%. That's the modest success that should (for the time being) stop the muttering about the knives being out for Bolland. How much time does he have? Well, it's clearer how long he'd like. In general merchandise, which is where the problems are concentrated (like-for-like sales were 4.3% lower over the six months), he's shuffled the management pack and is promising that customers will see the benefits "from next summer." That amounts to a plea by Bolland for judgment on his expensive overhaul of the new celeb-free M&S to be deferred for at least a year. If Christmas doesn't yield a fresh setback, he'll probably get it, if only because shareholders signed up to a plan that was always described as a three-year job. But Christmas had better be good. |