Marks and Spencer’s director of lingerie and beauty Janie Schaffer leaves the retailer after three months.
Read the original post: M&S lingerie chief Schaffer leaves
Category : Business, World News
Stakes are high for Marks & Spencer boss Marc Bolland as retailer struggles to adapt to today’s world of internet shopping and ordering
Not good, but not horrendous. That’s been the pattern of Marks & Spencer’s sales updates in its general merchandise division for about three quarters now, which is one reason why big shareholders’ dissatisfaction with chief executive Marc Bolland’s leadership has never quite reached boiling point. There is deep frustration, certainly, but also a grudging acceptance that there’s little justification in throwing out a boss who promised a three-year invigoration before the three years are up.
That statement holds even though Bolland was obliged to abandon his original three-year sales target after only one lap of the track. The compensating factor is that he has clearly revived the food business, which was regarded as the bigger problem back in 2010 – like-for-like sales were up 4% in the latest quarter and have been purring for a while.
But there’s no getting away from the fact that minus 3.8% in general merchandise, the seventh quarter in a row of decline, was poor. Bolland’s date in the last-chance saloon comes with the autumn/winter ranges, in stores from July and the first work from the latest set of clothing executives to try to discover a wow factor. If the autumn and winter collection is a flop, Bolland will struggle to survive in his £1m-a-year post.
The personal stakes, then, are clear. But it is also plain that there isn’t an alternative strategy to the one M&S has got – that is, shelling out huge sums to upgrade distribution and IT systems that belong, literally, to another century and struggle to adapt to today’s world of internet shopping and ordering.
Major fruits of the spending will arrive soon with a shiny new e-commerce distribution centre. A game-changer? Well, it will help. But a measure of how far behind the “multi-channel” curve M&S remains is this: website-related trade represents about 15% of its general merchandise sales, whereas Next’s Directory business is already up at 35% of group sales. At a rough approximation, one could say that M&S is about half a decade off the multi-channel pace.
It may be that one of Bolland’s mistakes was his failure to spell out to shareholders at the outset the size of M&S’s under-investment in distribution and logistics in the clothing division. Too late now; judgment day approaches.
Category : Business, World News
Marks and Spencer sales rose slightly in the first three months of the 2013, as good trading from its food business offset a fall in clothing sales.
Link: Marks and Spencer sales nudge ahead
Category : World News
Marks & Spencer was warned customers and staff may have been put at risk from asbestos contamination more than 10 years before receiving a £1m fine, a BBC investigation finds.
Read the original: M&S ‘warned over asbestos risk’
Category : Business, World News
Online grocer Ocado appoints former Marks and Spencer chairman Sir Stuart Rose to replace Lord Michael Grade as chairman.
Go here to see the original: Rose replaces Grade in Ocado role
Category : Business, World News
Marks and Spencer reports a 1.8% drop in sales over the festive period, as it releases its trading statement early following a leak.
See the article here: M&S releases sales figures early
Category : World News
Marks and Spencer, the UK’s biggest clothing retailer, has posted first-half pre-tax profits of £290m for the six months to the end of September, down 9.7%.
Continue reading here: Profits fall at Marks and Spencer
Internet fashion site set to confirm appointment of former Marks & Spencer fashion boss
Marks & Spencer’s former fashion boss Kate Bostock is to join online rival Asos – days after leaving the struggling high street retailer. Her appointment to a senior executive role at the fast growing Asos is due to be confirmed on Wednesday.
Bostock was one of the most powerful women in UK retail at M&S, overseeing all departments except food.
She has been linked with Asos for months, and she will bring useful big business experience to the internet fashion site which has become a hugely popular destination for younger shoppers and prospered through the downturn.
Prior to joining M&S in 2004 Bostock was product director for Asda’s George label and before that ran the childrenswear division of Next.
Her departure from M&S was announced in July when the company unveiled one of its worst trading performances in the past decade, with quarterly sales of general merchandise – Bostock’s fashion and homewares departments – down nearly 7%. At the time the retailer’s chief executive Marc Bolland – with whom Bostock is said to have had a strained relationship – said he was “taking the necessary steps” to improve the performance of fashion and home.
Last year Bostock earned £944,000 at M&S – down on previous years when she had received controversial retention bonuses designed to keep her in the business.
Category : Business
Volume of shares traded remains at all-time lows and former M&S head of clothing pockets nearly £900,000 in share sale
In what is shaping up to become one of the quietest weeks for trading ever, the FTSE 100 closed up a solitary point today, at 5835.
Silence appears to be running through the City’s trading floors, as a mere 584m shares changed hands.
One in five of those shares bought and sold were for Lloyds Banking Group (one of the day’s biggest risers, up 1p, 3.2%, at 32.2p) while the smattering of punters still awake swapped Vodafone shares. Together, the phone company and bank share deals accounted for 41% of the total volume on the FTSE 100 today.
And in case that was not evidence enough as to just how quiet the markets are, just 20 companies from the entire London market (FTSE 100, 250, AIM etc) reported that their directors have bought or sold shares.
Most notable was former Marks and Spencer head of clothing, Kate Bostock, cashing in her 2009 performance-related shares bonus which were released in June worth £434,890.
She also sold a further £441,045 worth of shares at the same time (boldly informing the stock market of both transactions at 4.25pm in the same announcement).
It means the former director – who left M&S recently after women’s fashion sales slumped – pocketed a cool £876,000.
Company news was thin on the ground.
Barrick Gold confirmed it is in talks to sell a majority stake in its African unit to Chine National Gold and would make it China’s largest mining deal in Africa. Shares closed up 31.4p, 8%, at 425.1p.
Category : Stocks
“We monetize on mobile,” says Zillow (Z) CEO Spencer Rascoff, suggesting this as the bull case on his stock. “It’s about trying to create an ad unit that is a service to a user, not a nuisance,” with the result being a user of Zillow on a cell phone is 3X more likely to contact an advertising agent than a user of Zillow on a desktop. (two highly-followed firms having trouble with mobile) 
Post your comment!
See the original post here: "We monetize on mobile," says Zillow (Z) CEO Spencer Rascoff, suggesting this as the bull case on his stock. "It’s about trying to create an ad unit that is a service to a user, not a nuisance," with the result being a user of…