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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
World
James Andrews & Sophie McCoid

M&S announces plans to close another 110 stores as profits tumble

Marks & Spencer has announced plans to shut 110 more stores - on top of the 35 shops they closes last year.

The retail giant is planning to close 85 full stores and 25 Simply Food outlets in an attempt to boost its performance.

As well as the store closures M&S are also planning to cut back their clothing range, focusing on a smaller number of items.

It's not yet known what exact stores M&S will be closing.

  But the company are also planning to open some new stores and looking at relaunching the "Per Una" range - reports Mirror Online.

Marks & Spencer  chief executive Steve Rowe said: "We are deep into the first phase of our transformation programme and continue to make good progress restoring the basics and fixing many of the legacy issues we face."

The move comes as the company's revenue dropped 3% and profit before tax fell 9.9%.

He continued: "M&S is changing faster than at any time in my career - substantial changes across the business to our processes, ranges and operations and this has constrained this year's performance, particularly in Clothing & Home.

"However, we remain on track with our transformation and are now well on the road to making M&S special again."

Why they're making the changes

M&S pointed out that its stores are old. Far older in many cases than its competitors.

They said: "Around one third of our full-line stores were opened before WWII and three quarters are older than 25 years."

Updating them to a more modern look and feel is costly and slow, and that means change.

M&S said it also plans to open new branches - both selling food as well as their full range including clothing and home - saying that overall its "store base is likely to remain broadly level".

The chain said: "Our strategy is as much about right sizing, relocating and new openings as it is about closures.

"We have updated our plan for the future shape of our total store estate.

"Reshaping the store portfolio means tackling the legacy issues, but also opening new full-line stores as well as Food stores where we can exploit current weak retail demand to secure excellent sites for relocations."

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