MKS.L - Marks and Spencer Group plc
| Previous close | 108.25 |
| Open | 110.00 |
| Bid | 107.40 x 0 |
| Ask | 107.65 x 0 |
| Day's range | 107.20 - 112.95 |
| 52-week range | 73.90 - 275.61 |
| Volume | 1,508,624 |
| Avg. volume | 13,319,045 |
| Market cap | 2.092B |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 1.22 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 21.46 |
| EPS (TTM) | 5.00 |
| Earnings date | 20 May 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | 14 Nov 2019 |
| 1y target est | 294.84 |
- Yahoo Finance UK
M&S donates uniform to NHS Nightingale staff
M&S is donating thousands of specially branded T-shirts to form part of the uniform pack for the frontline team at the new NHS Nightingale hospital in London.
- Reuters - UK Focus
LIVE MARKETS-Southern European banks' risk premium bound to be high
You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan (thyagaraju.adinarayan@thomsonreuters.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London. Risk premiums on Southern European banks is bound to remain high, unless a European deal to share the burden of public debt due to the coronavirus takes place, Jefferies analysts say.
- Reuters - UK Focus
LIVE MARKETS-What Brexit?
You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan (thyagaraju.adinarayan@thomsonreuters.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London. Since the referendum in 2016, the UK's process to leave the European Union was a top concern for investors, until Covid-19 happened. The sentiment is still fragile in London due to Boris Johnson's hospitalisation but stocks meanwhile are riding on the global risk-on wave as infection/death rate slows.
- Reuters - UK Focus
LIVE MARKETS-Highly leveraged EU companies are missing the rebound party?
You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan (thyagaraju.adinarayan@thomsonreuters.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London. Futures are pointing to an open in the black for European bourses on hopes the coronavirus crisis may be receding in some of the worst hit countries across the region.
- Yahoo Finance UK
Union calls on Marks and Spencer to protect workers from coronavirus
GMB Union has called on Marks and Spencer to protect workers from coronavirus, while condemning DHL which runs the warehouse where staff members staged two walk outs.
- Bloomberg
As the Virus Worsens, Garment Workers Get the Shaft
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As fashion retailers shutter their storefronts across Europe and North America due to the coronavirus, some of the world's most vulnerable workers are feeling the pain — and getting shafted.In Bangladesh, garment factories have already furloughed more than 1 million workers thanks to at least $3 billion in canceled and postponed orders. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, a key hub for apparel production, the toll is multiplying as quickly as the virus is spreading. If left unaddressed, the crisis could endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions more of the region’s workers.For decades, the apparel industry has had something of a devil’s bargain in Southeast Asia. Western companies have accepted the reputational risk that comes with capitalizing on the region’s low-wage labor, while local governments have tolerated poor factory conditions in return for jobs and growth. In some respects, the benefits have been undeniable: Last year, Bangladesh's apparel industry generated $35 billion in revenue, accounting for 80% of all export earnings, and employed 4.4 million people.In 2013, however, the human costs of this bargain became plain when Rana Plaza, a complex of garment factories near Dhaka, collapsed and killed at least 1,132 workers. The retailers and brands that had outsourced their production to the region looked for ways to prevent a recurrence while ensuring that outsourcing — and Bangladesh's most important export — could be sustained.The next year, they hit on a solution: independent monitoring and inspection organizations, empowered for five-year terms, with buy-in from government and local businesses. Over the next few years, these watchdogs inspected thousands of factories, shut down those that were in violation of safety standards, and pushed often expensive improvements — everything from installing fire alarms to improving building foundations — on others.Even under ideal conditions, however, this solution was only provisional. Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report documenting backsliding on labor rights in Bangladesh and elsewhere. But the disruption caused by the new coronavirus could prove to be a tipping point.So far, it’s come in two waves.The first started in February. China supplies the overwhelming majority of raw materials for Southeast Asia's garment makers (60% in the case of Vietnam). As Chinese textile producers shuttered, manufacturers in neighboring countries seized up. In Cambodia, the government recently predicted that 200 garment factories, employing 160,000 workers, could soon face raw-material shortages. Already, 10,000 Cambodian workers have been laid off, and some factory owners are reportedly taking advantage of the crisis to push out unionized employees. Safety standards will likely follow them out the factory doors.The second wave of trouble is just starting. In recent weeks, companies including Irish retailer Primark Ltd., Britain's Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Minneapolis-based Target Corp. have canceled, postponed or declared force majeure on orders for which their Southeast Asian partners have already purchased raw materials, and in some cases even completed work.The situation is so serious that Cambodia and India have made direct appeals to global brands to avoid cancellations and work out payment plans. Few are responding. According to a survey of Bangladesh’s garment factories conducted in March, nearly half had lost "a big share" of their orders. Nearly all buyers, most of whom are located in Europe, have refused to contribute to wages for furloughed workers.In the short term, such steps might help apparel companies weather a downturn. But the last decade should’ve taught them that — at least in the eyes of their customers — they have a deeper responsibility to the workers who manufacture their merchandise. A 2018 survey of consumers in seven countries found that nearly three-quarters of them believed that clothing companies should be held responsible for what happens in their factories and should transparently disclose working conditions. The danger is that the coronavirus gives factory owners and governments an excuse to roll back expensive safety programs and ignore hard-earned progress on wages and working conditions.There’s no easy fix when pain is being shared across an industry — not to mention across the world. But all parties would benefit if retailers and brands committed to a shared responsibility for paying garment workers for completed work, and contributed to a reasonable severance during the inevitable virus-driven slump. On Monday, Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M announced it would take delivery of goods (including those in production), and pay for them. Other brands should follow suit. Doing so will help long-time manufacturing partners who've improved safety standards and workers’ rights to stay in business through the pandemic.Meanwhile, rich-country governments keen to support labor rights in Southeast Asia should maintain preferential trading policies with the goal of supporting the region's workers through a devastating downturn. That should help some of the world's most vulnerable get through the next few months, while ensuring that years of progress made by the global apparel industry isn't left in tatters.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of “Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade” and the forthcoming "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
British Icon M&S Cut to Junk at S&P After Virus Shutdown
(Bloomberg) -- Britain’s lockdown in the face of the coronavirus has dented the prestige of one of the country’s most recognizable retailing brands.Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings cut Marks & Spencer Group Plc’s credit score to junk on Thursday, raising the possibility a major cultural icon will pay higher interest to lenders less sure they’ll get their money back.S&P said it expects the coronavirus to result in materially lower sales for the firm’s core clothing and home divisions, only partially mitigated by online and food sales. It also warned it could reduce the rating further if the U.K. lockdown continues into the second half of 2020.As of Sep. 28, the group’s net debt including lease liabilities was 4.13 billion pounds ($4.96 billion), and 1.59 billion pounds if those liabilities are excluded. The company has total available liquidity of 1.34 billion pounds including a 1.1 billion pound revolving credit facility that is undrawn, according to a statement from Mar. 20.M&S issued a profit warning earlier this month as the coronavirus started to tighten its grip on Europe. Britain’s retail industry was already on the ropes before the pandemic hit, losing market share to online sellers.The company’s 250 million pounds ($299 million) of bonds maturing due 2027 are currently quoted more than 10% below their face value having traded at par as recently as Mar. 9.So far this year 11 firms globally have lost their investment grade credit ratings, putting them in a category of so-called fallen angels, according to S&P.(Updates with net debt and liquidity position in 4th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Fool.co.uk
Dividend cuts: these 3 FTSE companies just cancelled their payouts
Investing for dividends is difficult in this market. These FTSE companies just announced dividend cuts. The post Dividend cuts: these 3 FTSE companies just cancelled their payouts appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
- Bloomberg
Online Grocer Ocado Misses Its Greatest Delivery
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- This should have been Ocado Plc’s crisis.The online-only grocer should have been capitalizing on shoppers avoiding crowded stores. Instead, last week it temporarily closed its website, potentially upsetting its customers. Still, investors clearly believe that it will emerge as one of the winners from the rush to buy toilet paper and tinned soup. As of Friday, Ocado’s shares were up for the year.But the pandemic has exposed some of the flaws in the group’s business model, which relies heavily on large, state-of-the-art robotic warehouses. Others, such as Walmart, take a more low-tech approach, fulfilling grocery orders from stores, where employees pluck packs of sausages and cereals from shelves for delivery to home or collection from supermarkets. When demand surges, it is much quicker and easier to ramp up the rate of grocery orders from stores compared to warehouses. As long as there are enough loaves of bread and toilet roll, more employees can simply put them into crates to be delivered to homes. In contrast, building and stocking automated warehouse is time-consuming and expensive. That makes Ocado’s business model less flexible.The debate about which approach is best is about to cross the Atlantic. In 2018, Ocado struck a deal to run the online grocery operations of Kroger Co, the U.S.’s second biggest grocer after Walmart. The two U.S. food retail giants will be taking diametrically opposite routes to meeting online demand, which was expected to grow anyway even without the pandemic. We’ll have to see which ultimately wins out, although right now, the ability to quickly scale up and exploit stores looks to have a lot of advantages. Ocado Retail, which is now a joint venture with British high street stalwart Marks & Spencer Group Plc, said last Thursday that so far, sales growth in its second quarter was running at twice the rate of the 10% expansion in the first three months of the year. But sales could have been up 50-100% — if Ocado had enough room or robots to pack more orders.Part of this is bad luck. Just over a year ago, the company suffered a catastrophic fire at its cutting edge facility in Andover, shutting down a space that would have been able to fulfill 60,000 orders a week. It has since clawed back some extra capacity at another facility that was being used by Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc, its first online partner. But it hasn’t been able to make up all that was lost.In contrast, Morrison, which sells through its own website and Amazon, is roughly doubling the number of stores that fulfill online orders to about 100. This isn’t all bad for Ocado, as Morrison’s own website will still use its technology to pick orders. But it does underline the greater flexibility of the old-fashioned approach.Brick-and-mortar grocers have another advantage too: They can be used as pick-up points for customers. In the U.K. this is known as “click and collect”; elsewhere, it's curbside or same-day pick-up. This is a strategy that Walmart has embraced successfully, as it already offers pick-up from 3,200 stores and will add another 500 locations this year. But Ocado is committed to its automated warehouse model, as it believes this delivers the best returns — even though the group has only made a pre-tax profit in a handful of years. The group does also have more traditional warehouse space due to open in the next year or so. And it has other alternatives that it should draw on. For example, it is building a facility in Bristol, which is about half the size of a normal warehouse and takes half the time to construct, around a year. Putting more emphasis on smaller hubs like this, and seeing whether they can be shrunk further, would be wise. This would enable facilities to be built more quickly, making the model more nimble. Another thing the online grocer should think about: It doesn’t have a facility for click and collect right now either. It should explore ways of adding this. From its partnership with Marks & Spencer, Ocado now theoretically has access to a large store estate. Even when this pandemic passes, it will leave a long-lasting impact on the way we purchase. Ocado should learn its lessons now, and adapt its business model accordingly, so it doesn’t have to shut up shop next time there is a crisis.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andrea Felsted is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the consumer and retail industries. She previously worked at the Financial Times.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Deliveroo launches 'essentials' service in Britain to help isolators
Britain's Deliveroo announced two services on Tuesday that could help people who are self-isolating due to the coronavirus - the first supplying essentials such as tinned goods, pasta and household items, and secondly, a tie-up with Marks & Spencer's stores on BP forecourts. The company, known for its online restaurant delivery service, said its "Essentials by Deliveroo" service would offer convenience items to people at home, especially the elderly and vulnerable who are staying at home to reduce the risk of coronavirus. It has already gone live in Cambridge and will be rolled out in Reading, Brighton, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds and London over the next two weeks, Deliveroo said.
- Yahoo Finance UK
Coronavirus: UK companies slash dividends by £500m in one day
Stagecoach, Go-Ahead, Kingfisher, and ITV were among 10 UK listed firms who collectively slashed shareholder dividends by more than £500m.
- Yahoo Finance UK
Coronavirus: M&S suspends pay rises and dividends as it braces for closures
Marks & Spencer is drawing up contingency plans in case it has to temporarily close its shops, and warned the coronavirus' impact will be 'severe.'
- Reuters
Britain's M&S warns of severe impact from coronavirus
British retailer Marks & Spencer warned on Friday trading over the next 9-12 months in its clothing, homewares and international businesses was likely to be "severely impacted" by the coronavirus pandemic. "M&S has served customers without cease through two world wars, terrorist bombings and numerous local disasters and we are determined to support our customers now as we always do," the 136-year-old group said. Shares in M&S were down 5.3% at 0829 GMT, taking losses for 2020 so far to 49%.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Britain's M&S warns of "severe impact" from coronavirus
- Bloomberg
Europe Stocks Fall Anew on Virus Concern After Brief Respite
(Bloomberg) -- European stocks struggled to find a floor to the current market sell-off as losses resumed on virus worries after Tuesday’s brief respite.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index was down 3.9% at the close of trading, pacing losses in the U.S. and Asia. Banks trimmed some declines in the afternoon as euro-area officials were said to be looking at activating the region’s bailout fund, a crucial step toward triggering the European Central Bank’s most powerful bond-buying powers.Oil-and-gas shares led the broad retreat across European sectors, down 9.8% after crude prices slumped to an almost 18-year low as Saudi Arabia ramped up a price war.Stocks in Europe, where the number of coronavirus cases has now surpassed those of China, have plummeted since last month’s peak as concern about the outbreak’s impact on growth and earnings has mostly overshadowed monetary and government easing measures.“Familiar hedging strategies to mitigate risks have become ineffective,” said Ostrum Asset Management strategist Axel Botte. Market liquidity in credit is extremely limited, especially if one wants to sell, he added.Despite the day’s losses, the Stoxx 600 remained above an intraday low hit on Monday. Strategists at Barclays Plc advised that investors stay put as fear reigns about the pandemic’s spread, while uncertainty is “likely near peak levels.”“There is no circuit breaker to kill extreme volatility,” strategists led by Emmanuel Cau wrote in a note. “Uncertainty is likely near peak levels, technicals are deeply oversold and bear market rallies could be sharp. We advise staying put for now.”Among European sectors, travel and leisure shares have been hit hardest in the sell-off. The sector slid a further 7.4% on Wednesday.Retailers retreated the least, with U.K. supermarkets including Marks & Spencer Group Plc, J Sainsbury Plc and Colruyt SA among the top gainers. That was even as the pound slipped to its lowest level against the dollar in over three decades amid coronavirus worries.(A previous version of this story was corrected to say crude prices slumped to an almost 18-year low)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Stockopedia
Is Marks And Spencer's share price being held back by these financial risks?
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- Fool.co.uk
2 FTSE 250 dividend stocks yielding 7% I’d buy right now
After recent declines, these undervalued FTSE 250 income stocks now support dividend yields of 7% and could be worth buying, says Rupert Hargreaves. The post 2 FTSE 250 dividend stocks yielding 7% I'd buy right now appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
- Reuters - UK Focus
UK environment minister: Retailers confident of avoiding food shortages
British environment minister George Eustice said on Friday he had been reassured by supermarkets that they had contingency plans in place to prevent food shortages linked to coronavirus. "The retailers reassured me they have well-established contingency plans and are taking all the necessary steps to ensure consumers have the food and supplies they need," Eustice said in a statement following a meeting with representatives from the food industry.
- Yahoo Finance UK
John Lewis cuts bonus for seventh year in a row as profits dive
John Lewis is also closing Waitrose stores and cutting jobs as the business struggles.
- Reuters - UK Focus
TUI, KingFisher among possible dropouts in FTSE reshuffle
European holiday company TUI and British home improvement group Kingfisher are among companies likely to exit the FTSE 100 in the blue-chip index's latest reshuffle, according to Reuters calculations based on Monday's closing prices. NMC Health will be expelled from the index after losing about two thirds of its market value after U.S. based short-seller Muddy Waters questioned the UAE-based hospital operator's financial statements. While TUI benefited from the failure of rival travel company Thomas Cook, it has been hit hard by the impact of the Boeing 737 MAX grounding and, as most stocks in the travel and leisure sector, by the coronavirus epidemic.
- Fool.co.uk
2 growth stocks for aggressive investors’ ISA holdings in 2020
Higher risk can often offer the potential of higher return for aggressive investors, writes Jonathan Smith.The post 2 growth stocks for aggressive investors' ISA holdings in 2020 appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Tesco unlawfully stopped rivals from opening stores - UK regulator
Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, unlawfully stopped major supermarket rivals from opening shops near its stores, the country's competition regulator said on Friday. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it first discovered that Tesco had been preventing landlords from letting property to other supermarkets during monitoring in 2018. Tesco then reviewed all of its land agreements, finding 23 breaches in total.
