Marks and Spencer posts second quarter sales drop

Published:  11 Jul at 10 AM

Marks and Spencer has posted a second-quarter sales drop which was in part blamed on stock issues at the start of the year and unseasonably poor weather. It has also announced a management shake up which will see Kate Bosworth step down from her position as head of general merchandise.

Like-for-like sales in the UK between April and June fell 2.8 per cent with the whole group seeing a drop of 0.7 per cent. However, the UK food business saw like-for-like sales rise by 0.6 per cent through the quarter.

Bostock is to be replaced by food business head John Dixon on 1 October. Director of retail Steve Rowe will take over as head of food. Former chief executive of Debenhams, Aquascutum and Jaeger, Belinda Earl, will join the company on 1 September as style director.

Shareholders in M&S have overwhelmingly voted in favour of senior management pay packages as well as for Marc Bolland’s re-election as the company’s chief executive. Mr Bolland said a difficult trading season had dented general merchandise sales but that steps had been taken to make sure that the situation had been remedied.

The retailer admitted that issues with stock had affected sales figures in the first quarter of the year. In April M&S announced that it had run out of replacement stock for some of its most popular womenswear lines. As well as performing well in its food department, M&S also announced that international sales were up by 0.9 per cent.