anything under 7 cheap cheap cheap. good div. just paid. chart looks sick

3rd Quarter Results

Marks and Spencer made good progress in three of its four key priorities for the year:

1) Food growth
· Great quarter with strong outperformance of the market: sales +2.8%; +0.1% LFL
· Record sales, +17% in the key Christmas week
· New stores performing well and store opening programme on track

2) Womenswear performance
· Difficult quarter for General Merchandise: sales -5.4%, LFL -5.8%
· Clothing sector performance impacted by unseasonal conditions in October and November
· Disruption at our Castle Donington distribution centre affected performance in December

3) General Merchandise gross margin improvement
· Good progress on gross margin: guidance unchanged at +150 to +200bps
· Slightly lower discounting driven by December

4) Cash generation
· Improved operating costs performance: guidance improved from c.+3.5% to c.+2.0%
· Continued tight control of costs and capital expenditure

QUARTER 4 2014/15 TRADING STATEMENT
13 WEEKS TO 28 MARCH 2015

'Food outperformed the market; General Merchandise performance improved'


Marks & Spencer continued to make strong progress against its four priorities for the year:

1) Food business outperformed the market
· Another strong performance in a difficult market: sales +3.7%; LFL +0.7%
· Specialist positioning continues to set us apart; record Valentine's sales
· New Simply Food stores performing well

2) GM and Womenswear sales performance improved
· General Merchandise: sales +1.3%, LFL +0.7%
· Customers recognising continued improvement in product quality and styling
· M&S.com sales back in growth as planned: sales +13.8%

3) General Merchandise gross margin improvement on track
· Good progress on gross margin: guidance unchanged at +150 to +200bps
· Full price sales up, discount participation slightly lower

4) Strong cash generation
· Improved operating costs performance: guidance improved from c. +2.0% to c. +1.5%
· Continued tight control of costs and capital expenditure

Marks & Spencer posts best non-food sales outcome in four years

Final Results

"M&S Grows Full Year Margin and Profit"

Improved full year results
· Group sales up 0.4%1 to £10.3bn
· Underlying profit before tax2 up 6.1% to £661.2m
· Statutory profit before tax up 3.4% to £600.0m

Food business outperforms in a very competitive market
· Specialist positioning differentiates us from the competition
· 62 new Simply Food stores opened, with performance ahead of expectations
· Gross margin up 30bps

General Merchandise gross margin up strongly
· Gross margin up 190bps
· Significant sourcing gains and slightly lower discounting

General Merchandise sales performance challenging
· Full year performance did not meet expectations, positive LFL growth in the final quarter
· Continued improvement in product quality and style
· M&S.com sales back in growth in the final quarter, following disruption earlier in the year

International business impacted by macro-economic issues
· Operating profit down 24.8% to £92m

Tight control of costs and capex
· Operating costs up 1.5%
· Capex down £183m to £526.6m

Strong cash generation
· EBITDA £1,312.6m, up £92.9m
· Free cash flow before dividend £524.2m, up £96.3m
· Final dividend up 7.4% to 11.6p; full year dividend up 5.9% to 18p
· Share buyback programme of £150m announced for 2015/16

Wee punt on the sreads long @ 456p

Update 07/01st.

the food side is probably performing quite well, but their clothing is a consistent disaster, not helped by unseasonally warm weather

Brave or stupid cynic? He who dares :0)

cynic - you may be right in thought - but M&S was the Big seller of ladies skirts at £200 a pop. They got that fashion just right according to Mary Portas (DYOR).
Winter clothing is a boost for retailers in general, but that shouldn't means "everyone"
+ did you see who's doing well in footwear that they have a raffle to allow punters into the queue!! How mad are folks, wanting to part with £00's for "rubbishy" (IMHO) shoes? M&S certainly got that skirt-fashion right, but maybe other areas are less-so . . . . we have to wait for the Annual Report . . . but it's far too broad to group "Retailers" together...IMHO.
HNY

Just read yesterday they have been stuck with a lot of heavy winter coats and thick jumpers, due to the mild winter. John Lewis has had a very good Christmas via the net.

/john-lewis-lifts-the-lid-on-xmas-sales

City expects third-quarter like-for-like sales at Marks & Spencer's general merchandise arm to fall by around 2 per cent, following a 1.9 per cent drop in the previous three months.



Online-retaiers-enjoy-record-festive-figures-experts-warn-high-street-operators-without-decent-websites-cosh.

IMHO, M&S 'take out curries' are now very poor and completely lacking in taste, when compared to what was offered about 12 months ago.

The secret? Well, there is one and it's this: Just don't eat it after just the first cooking. Then let it cool down, then stick it in the fridge for, say '23 hours' and then re-heat and re-serve.

NB. RICE EXCLUDED, of course. Heating up and re-using rice is never a good food policy and can give you food poisoning.

Simples! But it doesn't tell you this on the box.

that can be a dangerous thing to do for all sorts of reasons ..... most certainly do not do that with rice or you could end up with quite serious poisoning

Nothing new here folks, MKS get's written off every year. Go back ten years, same story SP bombs at Xmas. Performance during the course of the year is what counts. Uptrend is still intact from the low 200p in 2009, if it drops below 400p I would be worried.

Some support @ 440p from where it has recently bounced. The Q4 trading update on 07/04/16 is what counts IMHO.

Latest broker views


Date

Broker

New target

Recomm.


22 Dec Nomura 565.00 Buy
21 Dec RBC Capital... 600.00 Outperform
18 Dec Haitong... 550.00 Buy
18 Dec Exane BNP... 580.00 Outperform
17 Dec Peel Hunt 400.00 Sell
15 Dec Investec 590.00 Buy
15 Dec Barclays... 500.00 Equal weight
14 Dec Deutsche Bank 580.00 Buy
14 Dec Nomura N/A Buy
14 Dec JP Morgan... 550.00 Neutral

Broker Recommendations for Marks & Spencer Group


Does anybody really give any credence to Broker Rec's? Seems to me to be the 'Fickle Finger Of Fate' or the talents of 'Mystic Meg' would be more reliable. Above, only Peel Hunt forecast sell with target 400p.

It's a punt chaps DYOR. Tally Ho! DC :0)

Tally Ho Chris and a happy new year.

Fears-festive-disaster-M-S-sales-predicted-slide-5-5% -ramping-pressure-CEO-Marc-Bolland.

The board are out of touch with the British shopper. They have had 10yrs to turn around Mark's. They had a pathetic sale (if you could call it a sale) before Christmas.
Is it not better to turn goods over at a lesser profit than hold out at full price and sell far less? Primark just reduce and reduce until the shelves clear. M&S need to get over to Primark and watch. Sadly not got a clue and at the end of the day Mark Boland will walk away having failed with his pockets full.

i agree with the comment re NEXT in the above article
NXT has suffered along with the rest of the market and retailers, but it has a record of surprising investors for the better, so some investigation prior to 5th(?) is warranted

Yeah right LOL!!! And just how credible is a broker who just over a week ago issues a buy rating on a stock with a target of 565p and then fears a so called festive disaster! ?

I would always stand up for M&S but sadly of late I have to say how much better quality is a jersey that costs £35 in M&S than a £10 one off the market. The quality of the merchandise has also dropped . They are sadly going for maximum profit on goods that are far from top quality and the British public are far from stupid.
Next from what I can see are far from cheap but at least have kept the quality up.
Perhaps to late now but at any cost they should of head hunted top buyers/ store advisors from the likes of Next/ Primark etc. Could well be taken over and very easily turned round.

I haven't bought any gent's clothes from M&S for several years now. The quality is rubbish.

They are trying to fool guys with 'all wool this, that and the other', but it's so lightweight and thin it creases immediately and so doesn't look smart for longer than about a couple of minutes.

Their shirts are so short in the body they won't stay 'tucked into' your trousers.

Their underpants are wierdly pathetic too. The fabric is so thin and the elastic is so weak I just can't get to feel comfortable in them. I once read, that Jeremy Paxman had written to them about this particular problem but I don't think they've taken any notice. I googled and quickly found this: HERE