HIGH street bellwether Marks & Spencer is continuing the bear the marks of the recession and uncertainty over its management.
Interim results this week are expected to show a pre-tax profit of around £285 million, down from £298m last year.
Industry sources also do not expect any news on the succession to chairman and chief executive Sir Stuart Rose.
Rival fashionwear
groups, value retailer Primark and middle-market Next are due to put out annual results and a trading update respectively this week that will further spotlight the state of the British high street.
M&S has already flagged a broadly lacklustre performance with a trading update at the end of September which revealed like-for-like sales fell 0.5 per cent in the second trading quarter.
General merchandise sales, including clothing, slipped 0.8 per cent and food sales were flat.
Anne Critchlow, retail analyst at SocGen, said: "We expect only a gradual improvement in sales at the group, only probably turning positive in the third quarter. The good news is that the group is not doing anything wrong in terms of product, either in general merchandise or food."
The City consensus for full-year pre-tax profits at M&S is £582m, with a total dividend forecast of 15p against 17.8p last year as the retailer has made clear it wants to "rebalance" its dividend in these tough times.
Attention this Wednesday will also focus again on the succession issue, with Rose repeating a month ago that a chief executive would be appointed in 2010.
After that, a search for a non-executive chairman is scheduled to begin, with Rose due to leave the group no later than end of July 2011.
A rare investor day presentation by M&S – the first in a decade – was held this month and was widely seen as an unofficial 'beauty parade' of internal candidates for Rose's job.
Key presentations were given by clothing head Kate Bostock, finance director Ian Dyson and food division chief John Dixon. External candidates to have ruled themselves out of the running include Andy Bond at Asda and Charles Wilson, chief executive of Booker, Britain's biggest cash-and-carry wholesaler.
But one analyst said: "We are expecting no white smoke from the M&S tower on the issue this week. It is too soon."
