M&S Chairman Norman tells investors there’s no quick fix

LONDON — Shareholders in Marks & Spencer (M&S) should not be overly concerned about its financial results over the next two years because those numbers are not that important to the clothing and food retailer’s future, its new chairman told them on Tuesday.

Retail veteran Archie Norman joined M&S as chairman in September last year and two months later the company detailed its latest attempt at a turnaround after more than a decade of failed reinventions.

The plan included a five-year program of store closures and relocations to cut excess selling space in its clothing business, increased technology investment and moves to make a misfiring food business more competitive.

Private investors account for a little more than 11% of M&S’s share capital and there were 750 in attendance at Tuesday’s annual meeting at Wembley Stadium to hear for themselves what Norman had to say about the company’s progress.

“I don’t want to shock you all, but I have to tell you — for me — the results in the next two years are not the most important thing,” he told the meeting.

“I hope that we’ll be able to deliver some decent results and I hope we’ll be able to please you, but that’s not the most important thing. We’re here to deliver a profitable growing business in five years’ time. It’s not a quick fix.”

M&S has reported two straight years of profit decline and analysts are forecasting a third when it reports 2018-19 results next May, though this summer’s soccer World Cup in Russia has delivered a sliver of unexpected good news.

As the England team has progressed to the semifinals of the tournament, M&S has doubled sales of its waistcoats as fans clamor to emulate the sartorial elegance of team manager Gareth Southgate. Nevertheless, shares in the company have fallen 8% over the past year and it broke with tradition by not updating on first-quarter trading this year. It does not plan to report to the market until it delivers first-half results in November.

‘BURNING PLATFORM’

The retailer said in May that it was modernizing rapidly to survive — a theme Mr. Norman returned to on Tuesday with a stark warning.

“Both I and (CEO) Steve (Rowe) and the board are under no illusions, this business has a burning platform,” he said.

“We don’t have a God-given right to exist. Unless we change and unless we develop the company in the way we want to, in decades to come there will be no M&S.”

But Norman, who is most famous for his revival of supermarket chain Asda in the 1990s, did take issue with one private shareholder, Sunil Pal, who said M&S had become a “byword for failure.”

“I think that is an exaggeration. There’s a lot that’s very successful around the company,” said Mr. Norman, pointing to the strength of the M&S brand, its products and people. —