M&S to close dozens of high street stores under Rowe

Chief executive of Marks and Spencer Steve Rowe will announce next week a restructuring plan that will involve the closure of a significant number of UK stores, according to Sky News.

Sources said on Friday that the closures would number in the low dozens while other stores will see space reallocated from clothing to its more successful food operations. A number of other stores are expected to be relocated.

Rowe’s restructuring decisions are part of a wider strategy review aimed at convincing investors that he has a plan to transform M&S’s recent poor performance.

Since taking over last year, he has proposed cutting more than 500 head office jobs to reduce its costs.

Stores abroad will also see a reduction with Bloomberg reporting this week that some of its stores will be leaving China.

The move could also be due to competition from online stores intensifying in the market. The threat of rising inflation and the weakness of the sterling are also expected to be cited by Rowe as significant risks confronting the store.

The retail chain currently has just over 300 ‘full line’ stores in the UK, two thirds of which M&S owns the freehold or long leases for.

It also owns more than 220 Simply Food stores with a further 350 M&S food shops owned by franchisees.

Along with the closure of high street stores, Rowe plans to expand another 200 Simply Food stores bumping up the overall number of branded outlets by 2018-19.

The clothing business seems to be where the company is losing out with the sharpest like-for-like decline in July for over a decade.

"These are not the numbers I wanted to see - not by any stretch," said Rowe at the time.

The company’s shares have fallen by around one-third in the last year, giving the company a market value of just over £5.5bn.