Bhs profits pile pressure on Marks

BILLIONAIRE Philip Green today piled the pressure on Marks & Spencer by posting record underlying profits for Bhs and revealing that sales are gathering momentum.

Green, who declared war on M&S after failing in a £9.1bn takeover bid in the summer, also consoled himself with a another big dividend payment - this time just over £40m.

The tycoon has turned Bhs from a basket case into one of the strongest performers on the High Street since snapping up the group for just £200m four years ago.

Full-year results brought forward to today showed operating profits in the 12 months to 27 March rose 5.8% to a new, all-time high of £111.6m on a 0.9% increase in total sales to £889.8m.

While like-for-like sales were flat in the year, the gross margin rose 1.4 percentage points.

Crucially, figures since the end of August show that like-for-like sales rose 1.3% for the six weeks to 10 October.

The rise is in stark contrast to M&S which yesterday revealed another dire trading update, with clothing and home furnishing sales down 7.7% for the second quarter.

M&S also revealed its half-year results will be hit by £80m of exceptional charges, partly due to the costs of defending itself in the takeover battle.

Green said he was keen to move on from the 'M&S debate' but allowed himself one dig - 'They have their work cut out. We are dreaming of a nice Christmas.'

Bhs is currently refitting 50 of its top stores and Green said that while the programme had disrupted trading in recent weeks, the chain would be 'firing' by the end of October.

Higher interest charges pushed pre-tax profits at Bhs down by more than £2m to £120.9m.

Green owns 94% of Bhs. Last year he awarded himself a dividend of £201m.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in