Marks and Spencer p.l.c. (abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks & Sparks or Marks) is a major British multinational retailer based in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home products and food products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds. Through its television advertising it asserts the exclusive nature and luxury of its food and beverages. It also offers an online food delivery service through a joint venture with Ocado. In 1980, M&S became the first British supermarket chain to sell packaged sandwiches.
In 1998, M&S became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of more than £1 billion, although it then went into a sudden slump, taking the company and its stakeholders by surprise. In November 2008, the company began to sell branded goods such as Kellogg's corn flakes. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose. In the early 21st century, clothing sales fell, while food sales increased, after M&S dropped its traditional St. Michael brand.
On 22 May 2018, M&S announced that it would close more than 100 stores by 2022 in a "radical" plan. It cut 7,000 jobs in 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, M&S announced plans to close another 30 shops over the next 10 years as part of its turnaround plan. In its 2024 results, the company stated that it was aiming at reducing locations to 180 full-line and 420 food stores in the UK, saying legacy stores were more expensive to operate.
History Establishment
Marks & Spencer was founded as a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew born in Slonim (now Belarus), who had migrated to Leeds, England, in the early 1880s, and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. Marks worked for a company in Leeds called Barran, which employed Jewish migrants (see Sir John Barran, 1st Baronet). In 1884, he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 (), which he used to establish his penny bazaar on Kirkgate Market in Leeds.
Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirst's cashier was Thomas Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose second wife, Agnes, helped improve Marks's English. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in the Leeds covered market, he invited Spencer to become his partner.
In 1901, Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market in North West England, amalgamating his business with Spencer's. In 1903, the two men were allocated stall numbers 11 and 12 in the centre aisle; there they opened the penny bazaar. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923.
The next few years saw Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer move the original Leeds penny bazaar to 20, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, and they also opened market stalls in many locations around the North West of England. Spencer died in 1905, and Marks in 1907; Michael Marks's son Simon became chairman in 1916. Under Simon Marks, the company acquired other chains of penny bazaars, growing into a retail empire.
Domestic growth
Textiles were first sold in 1926, and food began to be sold from 1931. Marks and Spencer, known colloquially as "Marks and Sparks",Time – "Business: Marks & Sparks Trades Up", 28 November 1977 or "M&S", made its reputation until the 1990s with a policy of selling 99% British-made goods. It entered into long-term relationships with British manufacturers, and sold clothes under the "St Michael" brand, after Michael Marks, which was introduced in 1928, and extended to food in 1941, replacing all other brands by 1956. It also accepted the return of unwanted items, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown, no matter how long ago the product was purchased, which was unusual for the time.
During the Second World War in 1941, M&S staff raised £5,000 to pay for a Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft called The Marksman. By 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the "St Michael" label. M&S lingerie, women's clothes and girls' school uniform were branded under the "St Margaret" label until the whole range of general merchandise became "St Michael". Simon Marks died in 1964, after fifty-six years' service. Israel Sieff, the son-in-law of Michael Marks, took over as chairman and in 1968 John Salisse became a company director. A cautious international expansion began with the introduction of Asian food in 1974. M&S opened stores in continental Europe in 1975 and in Ireland four years later.
The company put its main emphasis on quality, including a 1957 stocking size measuring system. In 1948, it established a Food Technology department. Staff in the canteens and cafeterias had hygiene training by the mid-1950s. For most of its history, it also had a reputation for offering fair value for money. When this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has historically been an iconic retailer of 'British Quality Goods'.
The uncompromising attitude towards customer relations was summarised by the 1953 slogan: "The customer is always and completely right!" Smoking was banned as a fire hazard from all M&S shops in 1959. Energy efficiency was improved by the addition of thermostatically controlled refrigerators in 1963.
M&S began selling Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings in 1958. In an effort to improve the quality of their Swiss rolls, they hired the food expert Nat Goldberg, who made a major improvement across their entire cake range, which had lost the public's favour a few years earlier. As a later measure to improve food quality, food labelling was improved and "sell by dates" were phased in between 1970 and 1972. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine bombed the Oxford Street store of Marks & Spencer in London on 18 July 1969.
International expansion In 1972, Marcus Sieff became chairman, remaining in place until 1984, and emphasising the importance of good staff relations to the tradition of the store while extending staff benefits to areas such as restaurants and chiropody.
Marks & Spencer expanded into Canada in 1973, and at one point had 47 stores. Despite efforts to improve its image, the chain was never able to move beyond its reputation there as a stodgy retailer, one that catered primarily to senior citizens and expatriate Britons. The shops in Canada were smaller than British outlets, and did not carry the same selection. In the late 1990s, further efforts were made to modernise them and also expand the customer base. Unprofitable locations were closed. Nevertheless, the Canadian operations continued to lose money, and the last 38 shops in Canada were closed in 1999.
Expansion into France began with shops opening in Paris at Boulevard Haussmann and Lyon in 1975, followed by a second Paris shop at Rosny 2 in 1977. Further expansion into other French and Belgian cities followed into the 1980s. Although the Paris shops remained popular and profitable, the Western European operation as a whole did not fare as well and 18 shops were sold in 2001. In April 2011, M&S changed direction again, with a plan to reopen a store that would sell food as well as clothing. In addition, the group opened several food outlets throughout Paris. The first branch opened on 24 November 2011, on the Champs-Élysées in a ceremony attended by the company's CEO Marc Bolland, the model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and the British Ambassador to France, Sir Peter Westmacott.
In early 1980, Marks & Spencer became the first British supermarket chain to sell packaged sandwiches, beginning with five shops. Demand was so high that M&S enlisted suppliers to industrialise the process, and other supermarkets followed. By 1990, the British sandwich industry was worth £1 billion. In 1988, Marks & Spencer acquired Brooks Brothers, an American clothing company, and Kings Food Markets, a US food chain.
21st century Financial decline
M&S's profits peaked in the financial year 1997–1998. At the time, it was seen as a continuing success story, but with hindsight it is considered that during Sir Richard Greenbury's tenure as head of the company, profit margins were pushed to untenable levels, and the loyalty of its customers was seriously eroded. Another factor was the company's refusal until 2001 to accept any credit cards except its own chargecard. These factors combined to send M&S into a sudden slump: its profits fell from more than a billion pounds in 1997 and 1998, to £145 million in the year ended 31 March 2001.
In 2002, with changes in its business focus such as accepting credit cards, the introduction of the "Per Una" clothing range designed by George Davies, and a redesign of its underlying business model, profits recovered somewhat. In 2004, M&S was in the throes of an attempted takeover by Arcadia Group and BHS boss, Philip Green. On 12 July, a recovery plan was announced that would involve selling off its financial services business M&S Money to HSBC Bank, buying control of the Per Una range, closing the Gateshead Lifestore and stopping the expansion of its Simply Food line of shops. Philip Green withdrew his takeover bid after failing to get sufficient backing from shareholders.The book- "Marks in time" by Orionbooks.co.uk (2009)
In February 2007, M&S announced the opening of the world's largest M&S shop outside the UK at Dubai Festival City. On 2 October 2008, M&S opened its first mainland China shop, which is in Shanghai. Problems with the supply chain for the first few months of opening led Stuart Rose, M&S chairman, to describe failures in "basic shopkeeping".
Restructuring
Twenty-two unprofitable and minor food stores, including branches in Ripon and Balham, were closed in early 2009 as part of a cost-cutting measure. In August 2010, it was confirmed that the Grantham branch of M&S would close, along with two other Lincolnshire branches in Skegness and Scunthorpe, owing to low sales in these older format stores. These decisions met with protests from the local communities and petitions were signed in support of retaining the stores, although the closures went ahead.
The Retail Knowledge Bank conducted an audit of the company's brands in August 2010, and revealed that sales of womenswear were at a 10-year low. Drapers magazine claimed that Per Una was the only clothing brand not at risk of being axed while Marc Bolland, the chief executive, considered which brands would be retained.
In October 2010, chairman Sir Stuart Rose was a signatory of a letter to The Daily Telegraph stating that "The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector, and the redeployment of people to more productive activities will improve economic performance, so generating more employment opportunities", despite recent job cuts of 1,000 staff."M&S cuts 1,000 jobs as fashion sales dive", Helen Power and Marcus Leroux, The Times, 6 January 2009
On 9 November 2010, Bolland revealed plans to strengthen the company's overall brand image and targeting sales of between £800 million and £1 billion for which company will increase capital expenditure to £850 million to £900 million over the next three years to fund the plans. The plan also involved the discontinuation of its 'Portfolio' fashion brand and the sale of electrical products. The company announced a new marketing strapline, 'Only at M&S', and that it would revamp its website. Bolland ordered a new store design in May 2011, and it was announced that the company would spend around £600 million between 2011 and 2014 on its UK stores.