Britain’s Marks & Spencer on Wednesday slumped to the first loss in its 94 years as a publicly listed company after clothing sales were hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
M&S, one of the best known names in UK retail, said it made a pretax loss before one-off items of 17.4 million pounds ($22.6 million) in the 26 weeks to Sept. 26 – its first loss since listing its shares on the stock market in 1926.
The outcome was ahead of analysts’ average forecast of a loss of 59 million pounds and compares to a profit of 176.5 million pounds in the same period last year.
Clothing and home sales fell 21.3% in the second quarter after a first-quarter decline of 61.5%.
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