Marks & Spencer sales drag down shares

FTSE 250 supermarket group Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) saw its share price decline by 1.77% to 138.85p (as of 15:05 GMT) after revenues for the thirteen weeks ended 26th December fell by 8.4%. Growth in the UK food sector was outweighed by significant declines in the clothing, home, and international arms of the business.

CEO Steve Rowe commented: “Given the on-off restrictions and distortions in demand patterns our trading was robust over the Christmas period. More importantly beneath the Covid clouds we saw a very strong performance from the Food business including Ocado Retail and a further acceleration of Clothing & Home online. I want to thank all my colleagues for a first-class execution of Christmas for our customers in near impossible conditions.

“Near term trading remains very challenging but we are continuing to accelerate change under our Never the Same Again programme to ensure the business emerges from the pandemic in very different shape“.