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LONDON, May 26 (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer
on Wednesday reported an 88% slump in full-year profit,
reflecting a collapse in clothing sales due to the COVID-19
pandemic and said it was unlikely to pay a dividend for the
current year.
M&S, which also sells upmarket food, made a pretax profit
before one-off items of 50.3 million pounds ($71.2 million) in
the year to April 3 versus analysts' average forecast of 43
million pounds and down from the 403.1 million pounds made in
2019-20.
The 137-year old group, one of the best known names in
British retail, said like-for-like clothing and homeware sales
plunged 31.5%, damaged by multiple coronavirus lockdowns which
shuttered stores, while food sales on the same basis were up
1.3%. Food stores remained open during the crisis.
As a result it made a statutory loss of 209.4 million pounds
versus a profit of 67.2 million pounds in 2019-20.
M&S said overall trading for the first six weeks of the
2021-22 financial year and since all stores reopened from
lockdown has been ahead of the comparable period two years ago
in 2019-20, and its central expectations.
It forecast underlying pretax profit to recover to 300-350
million pounds in 2021-22.
"As we recover balance sheet metrics consistent with
investment grade, we will assess the reintroduction of dividend
payments, although as we focus on restoring profitability this
is unlikely in the current year," it said.
($1 = 0.7065 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton)
