Simply Food stores offer convenient cut for M&S

Marks & Spencer is to close more shops as part of an attempt to revive its prospects. Steve Rowe, chief executive, said that the group would close 25 Simply Food convenience shops in a more wide-ranging revamp than had been announced before. The revamp involves opening bigger grocery shops, which led to claims that M&S was moving towards Britain’s supermarket chains. The Times and teh FT also report on the retailer’s results reporting that it has played down the impact of falling out of the FTSE 100 for the first time in its history after another sharp fall in its share price left it teetering on the brink of tumbling out of the index of Britain’s biggest listed companies. More than £410m was wiped off the value of the high street retailer yesterday after its shares dropped by 25½p, or 9.4%, to 245¾p amid the news of a near-10% decline in annual profits and a deeply discounted £601.3m rights issue to pay for a venture with Ocado, the online grocer. Click here for the full Times results article (£) Click here for the full FT results article (£)
 Click here for the full Times Simply Food article (£) Click here for the full Telegraph Simply Food article (£)