(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) -Milano,21 mag-The UK retailer Marks & Spencer said that in the year ended March 29 its pretax profit fell 23.9% to 511.8 million pounds reflecting a 248.5 million non-cash impairment for investment in Ocado Retail.

Profit before tax and adjusting items however rose 22.2% to 875.5 million pounds and was the highest in over 15 years.

Statutory revenue rose 6.0% to 13.817 billion pounds and sales were 6.1% higher at 13.914 billion pounds.

Food sales rose 8.7% to 9.0 billion pounds and adjusted operating profit increased to 484.1 million from 388.4 million for a margin of 5.4%. Fashion, Home & Beauty sales increased 3.5% to 4.2 billion pounds and the adjusted operating profit rose to 475.3 million from 437.5 million for a margin of 11.2%. International constant currency sales fell 7.1% to 0.7 billion pounds with an adjusted operating profit of 46.3 million against 47.8 million.

Net profit fell 31.3% to 291.9 million pounds, resulting in basic earnings per share of 14.6 pence, down 33.3%. Adjusted basic EPS rose 29.7% to 31.9 pence.

The group increased its dividend by 20% to 3.6 pence.

M&S said it was increasing capital investment in 2025/26 to 600-650 million pounds net of disposals to fuel growth and resilience.

It expects to take a 300 million pound hit to its 2025/26 operating income before cost mitigation, insurance and trading actions from a cyber incident.

"Overall, our strategy remains the same and there is no change to our longer-term plans to reshape M&S for growth. We are confident that we will enter the second half with a strong customer proposition, returning to the performance we were delivering immediately prior to the incident and.

throughout 2024/25," it said.

(RADIOCOR) 21-05-25 08:43:09 (0176) 5 NNNN