marks & SPencer

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROJECT

MARKS & SPENCER

1. Introduction

“ Springtime 1998 and 13 million shoppers a week were pouring through the doors of Marks & Spencer’s 286 British stores. More important, those customers were pouring out again laden with bright green shiny plastic bags bulging with M&S clothes, food and homeware. That May, one of the sunniest and driest on record, directors and store managers alike were bedazzled by the figures. Business had rarely been better for Britain’s largest and most trusted retailer.”

The clothing, food and financial services retailer, Marks & Spencer, is a worldwide organisation steepped in 100 years of history. The history of Marks & Spencer tell’s a tale of how a family-run business can grow from the opening of Simon Mark’s first Bizarre store at Kirkgate open-market in Leeds in 1884, to being one of the most successful British department stores of all time, with profits exceeding £1 billion in 1997. But it is also a tal...