British retailer Marks & Spencer said it was hopeful the downturn in its markets had bottomed out as it reported a 40 percent slide in full-year profits and cut its dividend by a third to conserve cash. "I'm not into 'green shoots' mode but... maybe this is a plateau at the bottom," said Executive Chairman Stuart Rose.
The clothing, food and homewares group said on Tuesday it aimed to revive its fortunes with a new marketing campaign: "Quality Worth Every Penny," and improve its supply chain and systems, whilst forging ahead with expansion online and abroad. The plan will be led by finance director Ian Dyson, marking him as the frontrunner to succeed Rose who plans to step down in 2011.
Carl Leaver, head of the international business and also tipped as a potential successor, resigned. "There's a push-pull going on at the moment between the consumer who is wanting to be more cheerful ... (while) there are still some issues in the financial markets which could destabilise things," he told reporters on a conference call.
Many of Britain's retailers have seen margins slashed by aggressive price-cutting as shoppers reduce spending amid rising unemployment, sliding house prices and fears of a long recession. The ONS revealed on Tuesday that deflation had moved into record territory as the RPI fell to minus 1.2 percent in April.
Rose said trading at Marks & Spencer (M&S) had remained broadly in line with fourth-quarter trends in the first seven weeks of its new financial year. He was cautious on the outlook for the rest of the year. Sales were still falling, "but particularly in foods we've had an improving performance since the late part of last year ... I anticipate that we can keep that going and I'm hopeful that the sales level in clothing will slowly improve."
Share prices have rallied sharply in recent weeks on hopes of a recovery. M&S's shares, up as much as 50 percent over the past two months, were down 8.6 percent at 310 pence by 1155 GMT. "Overall we feel the outlook is not especially rosy and we are not convinced that the management has stemmed the tide yet in terms of market share losses," said Arden Partners analysts.
PRESSURE ON ROSE The 125-year-old group, which is Britain's biggest clothing retailer, made an underlying pretax profit of 604.4 million pounds ($927.5 million) for the year to March 28. That compares with analysts' consensus forecast of 603 million pounds, and with 1.0 billion pounds profit the previous year. Sales were up 0.4 percent at 9.1 billion pounds.
The retailer ended the year with net debt of 2.5 billion pounds and cut its total dividend payout to 17.8 pence from the 22.5 pence paid in 2007/8. The final dividend will be cut by a third to 9.5 pence, the first cut since 2000, and the 2009/10 interim dividend will be trimmed to 5.5 pence.
The dividend cut will be a blow to about 213,000 small investors in the firm who own around 21 percent of its equity and who played a major role in thwarting billionaire retailer Philip Green's take-over attempt in 2004. It will pile more pressure on Rose, who just 12 months ago raised the total dividend by 23 percent and who was already under fire from investors for combining the roles of chairman and CEO against corporate governance best practice.
Rose denied Dyson was being groomed as his successor with the latest in a series of management changes that will also see head of clothing Kate Bostock take on the group's home business and retail boss Steve Rowe add online to his responsibilities. But some analysts said Dyson's star had risen. "This is likely to be an opportunity to prove himself as a possible candidate for the CEO role when Stuart Rose steps down," J.P. Morgan analysts said of Dyson's appointment.
Justin King, head of British grocer J Sainsbury, is widely tipped as the most likely external successor to Rose. But said last week he expected to be at Sainsbury's for years. M&S, which runs over 600 stores in Britain and about 285 abroad, said planned new openings in 2009/10 would add about 3 percent to total space in the UK and 20 percent abroad.
It forecast UK gross margin would fall by 125 to 175 basis points this year, with UK operating costs falling by 1 percent and capital expenditure down 36 percent to 400 million pounds. Rose said M&S would invest 200 to 300 million pounds in its "Doing the Right Thing" revival plan over the next two years.
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