LONDON, June 10 (Reuters) - Marks & Spencer said onMonday it would invest 200 million pounds ($311 million) in adistribution centre at a new deep-sea container port east ofLondon to help make its supply chain more efficient.
M&S, Britain's biggest clothing retailer which also sellshomewares and upmarket foods, is spending 1 billion pounds ($1.6billion) over six years to 2015 on logistics, IT and systems, asit seeks to become an international multi-channel retailer -connecting with customers through stores, the Internet andmobile phones.
The firm is replacing more than 100 warehouses it had acrossBritain in 2009 with three huge distribution centres. The firstopened in Bradford, northern England, in 2010 and the secondopened in Castle Donington, central England, last month. LondonGateway will be the third.
M&S said that locating the new 900,000 square-footdistribution centre at DP World's London Gateway porton the Thames near Stanford-Le-Hope, east of London, would allowit to handle millions of products directly from ships, removingmillions of road miles and giving it closer access to keyBritish cities.
"London Gateway will help us become more efficient bycutting costs and locating our supply chain closer to our storesand our international markets," said Chief Executive MarcBolland.
M&S said its investment would create about 700 jobs andhundreds of additional workers would be employed in theconstruction phase.
The group is battling to reverse seven straight quarters offalling underlying sales in clothing and homewares.
But M&S shares are up about 33 percent over the past year,pushed higher by periodic bouts of takeover speculation. Theyhit a five-year high last month after new autumn/winter clothingranges drew a positive response from analysts and fashion media.
The stock was down 0.4 percent at 451 at 1203 GMT, valuingthe business at about 7.3 billion pounds.
Subject to planning, M&S will begin construction of the newfacility in 2014. London Gateway port is set to open in thefourth quarter this year.
The port will ultimately allow the world's largest ships todock just 25 miles from the centre of London.
Marks & Spencer (MKS)