More than 100 stores face axe in M&S revamp

MARKS & Spencer must axe even more stores than the 100 already planned to revive its fortunes, it said last night.

The move is likely to affect thousands of jobs at the company, which has around 1,000 stores and 81,000 staff.

A transformation plan under chairman Archie Norman and chief executive Steve Rowe aims to move more sales online. A spokesman said: ‘We have been very clear that our store closure programme is going to be more than 100 stores. We are delivering the UK’s biggest retail transformation plan which includes us modernising and updating our store estate.’

Analysts at Shore Capital, the M&S house broker, said the retailer had no choice after dismal sales over Christmas.

Clive Black, head of research at Shore Capital, said: ‘We concur with management that radical change is necessary, knowing that the closures have not been undertaken lightly. We would still not be surprised to see a more substantial closure programme.

‘The change programme is challenging, and predicated upon a poor financial performance for many years.’

Rowe has blamed M&S’s massive business rates bill for heaping further pressure on the firm and forcing it to close swathes of stores.

Seb James, chief executive of Boots, joined the chorus of criticism of business rates, telling the Mail: ‘We are not on a level playing field. People have dismissed it as whining but now we really are seeing retailers go to the wall.’

Greetings card and stationery retailer Paperchase is understood to have appointed KPMG to advise on a major overhaul of its store portfolio.

It has 2,000 staff and 130 stores in the UK, and 30 internationally. Rates have hammered traditional bricks-andmortar retailers which are struggling to compete with an onslaught from online firms such as Amazon.