Struggling M&S warned it won’t grow for YEARS

Profits forecast to fall by 12% – despite £2.3billion revamp by former chief

MARKS & Spencer’s performance is expected to hit the doldrums this year and may not recover until 2020 at the earliest, according to worrying new forecasts.

Figures which have been collected from a host of banks and stockbrokers, say profits could fall 12 per cent to just over £600million in the financial year to March 2017. Analysts expect them to stay at that level for at least another two years despite M&S paying former chief executive Marc Bolland more than £17million during his six-year tenure to turn the performance round.

Retail experts said the situation is disappointing after Bolland spent £2.3billion re-engineering the firm’s supply chain and online business. New boss Steve Rowe, who has previously been widely credited with reinvigorating the retailer’s food business, has taken personal control of the clothing business in an effort to stop sales shrinking.

‘I think Bolland took M&S backwards on many fronts and spent a lot of money in the process,’ said retail expert Richard Hyman. ‘Rowe is a significant upgrade, but there are no silver bullets to restore M&S’s fortunes.

‘There are lots of things that need to be done and it’s going to take a lot of time. One key imperative for Rowe is to be crystal clear with the City about the size of the task and how long it will take. You can’t change the fortunes of a company this size quickly. It would be difficult anyway, but in the current market the difficulties have multiplied.’

But he added that, with grim times expected for the high street, ‘if M&S stands still over that time, it could still outperform many high street rivals’.

Jonathan Pritchard, an analyst at stockbroker Peel Hunt, said few expect Rowe to return M&S to its ‘halcyon days’ in the 1990s when the firm had a ‘love affair’ with the British public.

He said: ‘These forecasts are based on the view that like-for-like declines in clothing will persist.’

But he added: ‘Expectations are so low that if he can tighten things up, generate some like-for-like growth in the medium term and generally become a better retailer, then that will outstrip current expectations in the City. Some might argue that is within his reach.’

Bolland left in June and has secured a job at private equity giant Blackstone.