Proactive Investors - Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LON:MKS) will be hoping that a strong festive period can lay the foundations for chairman Archie Norman’s global expansion plans.
The retailer will update investors on Thursday 11 January with its Christmas trading update, a key period when most stores collect a big chunk of their annual earnings.
In a year when the group’s shares rallied close to 120% and it was added back to the FTSE 100 for the first time since 2019, a strong festive period may just be the icing on the cake for M&S.
Nevertheless, Norman, who has been pivotal to the retailer’s revival since arriving in 2017, isn’t satisfied with stopping there.
“We would like M&S to be here for another 100 years, but to do that it has ultimately got to become a global brand. I think we see that as the phase after this one,” he said in an interview with the Times.
M&S boasts stores in regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and South East Asia, but has been largely focused on UK operations since pulling out of several markets such as France and China in 2016.
While Norman sees potential in adapting clothing ranges to suit trends in particular regions, a technique used by Zara and H&M, he stressed that globalising M&S’s own-brand food could prove difficult with suppliers.
However, before you can run you must walk and a poor festive trading update, especially if others outperform, could undo a lot of the good work Norman and senior management have done over the years.