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. It forecast underlying pretax profit to recover to 300-350 million pounds in 2021-22.

Source: bd News24 May 26, 2021 06:22 UTC