Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a British retailer with 32m customers around the world, though Britain is its main market. Some 96% of Britons live within 25 minutes of a store. The company is led by chief executive Stuart Machin, who took over in 2022.
In the 2021 financial year M&S, battered by Brexit and covid-19 lockdowns, reported cratering sales and pre-tax losses of over £200m. Under Mr Machin the business has been transformed. In the 2025 fiscal year sales gained more than 6% year-on-year, while profits before tax and adjusting items rose by 22%. Return on capital employed, adjusted for various things, jumped to 16.4% from 12.2% in 2022. Shortly before a cyber-attack in April 2025 the stock rallied to its highest level since the Brexit vote.
Food accounts for over 60% of sales. M&S has long been popular for treats ahead of festivals and for sandwiches on the go. It is trying to become a place where people do their weekly shop, selling more items in family-size packs and slashing the price of essentials to match competitors. NIQ, a data provider, estimates its share of the British grocery market has crept up over four years from 3.4% to 3.8%. The retailer constantly launches products in response to social-media trends.
Under Maddy Evans, who took over womenswear in 2022, M&S trimmed duplicate and outmoded items, raised prices and added more stylish products. Sourcing shifted from China to Turkey, enabling faster responses to trends. Roughly three-quarters of clothing now sells at full price, up from half a couple of years ago. The fashion division makes net profit margins of around 11%.
The goal is to cut the portfolio to around 420 food halls and 180 full-line stores by 2028. Over 60% of the firm's £578m capital spending in the last financial year went into stores and other property.
The website, through which one-third of fashion, home and beauty is sold, has been described as tough to navigate and bland. Analysts at Investec and Deutsche Bank describe M&S's tech platforms as outdated and "cobbled together". M&S has announced plans to spend £340m building a 1.3m-square-foot automated distribution centre for food, the biggest such investment in its history.
In April 2025 M&S detected a cyber-attack. Most systems had to be switched off; the website was down for around six weeks. M&S estimated it lost £300m ($405m) in operating profit, roughly one-third of its annual total. The attack was attributed to Scattered Spider, which also hit the Co-op and Harrods. According to Reuters, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an Indian contractor, was the "means of access" in the hack; TCS also works with the Co-op and with Jaguar Land Rover, with which it shares a corporate parent. A TCS director later told shareholders that "no TCS systems or users were compromised". M&S's resilience insurance underwrote roughly a third of the £300m in lost business.
M&S holds a 50% stake in Ocado Retail, a loss-making online grocer, acquired in 2019. In the last financial year M&S posted a £250m non-cash impairment on the stake.
M&S estimates that changes to National Insurance, a payroll tax, will add some £60m to its costs in 2025, while new recycling rules will add another £40m. Food net profit margins are around 5%.
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