Marks And Spencer Share Discussion Threads

[johnwise] 19/2/2021 08:18

Debenhams store in Llandudno to be taken on by Marks and Spencer

The retail giant will relocate from the high street to the Parc Llandudno shopping park

[johnwise] 19/2/2021 08:17

Debenhams store in Llandudno to be taken on by Marks and Spencer

The retail giant will relocate from the high street to the Parc Llandudno shopping park

[xxxxxy] 19/2/2021 07:56

7:45amMore reaction to retail sales..Richard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics, says:Any momentum built up in the run-up to Christmas was deflated by the third national lockdown in January. Retail sales plunged at the fastest rate since the pandemic broke last year as January blues were heightened by further restrictions to control the spread of the virus. However, the proportion of online sales reached new heights. The pandemic has driven a step-change in online shopping and a new wave of digital shoppers have broken down the initial barriers of setting up online accounts, entering payment details and overcoming issues of trust.Consumers now seamlessly transition to lockdown shopping habits, switching to online channels they discovered during previous lockdowns. It's inevitable that some of these behaviours will become a permanent feature of the industry as consumers embrace a new way to shop and the industry boosts online capacity..... Daily Telegraph

[qantas] 18/2/2021 12:15

Strong decline in coronavirus across England since January, React study shows

[xxxxxy] 17/2/2021 15:09

The research, undertaken Censuswide for Eskenzi PR and Marketing, found of the 1,000 people surveyed living in the UK, 34 percent had stopped buying goods and services from the EU since the UK finally severed ties on December 31.... Daily Express..

[xxxxxy] 17/2/2021 14:32

Jonathan Munday17 Feb 2021 1:29PMIn order to ask when we should stop lockdown, we only need to ask what is lockdown for?The government has told us ad nauseam that "staying home" is to "protect the NHS" and to "save lives".We should also we are told "follow the science/data"The data is crystal clear that no one who has had the Astrazeneca vaccination has been hospitalised or died. It is also clear that the under 40s do not die with Covid and are rarely hospitalised.Ergo: - everyone who has been vaccinated (after 22 days) or is under 40 has no need for any lockdown restrictions of any kindThat much is ineluctable.This leaves the 40-70 years old which need to be vaccinated before they are free. They are not at much risk of death (about 10% of the current totals) but a little more of hospitalisation. They should wear masks and socially distance and use some common sense until its their turn (July at the latest).If the government can face the political hatred of locking up further all 40-70 yrs old then we had all better prepare for Starmer as PM, which will be worse for the economy than the virus.But at any event there is no longer any excuse for lockdown restrictions affecting the vaccinated and the under 40s..... Daily Telegraph

[philanderer] 17/2/2021 00:08

Fashion retailers that have survived the COVID-19 crisis are expected to benefit from pent-up demand as consumers will appreciate the immediacy, social interaction and gratification of high street shopping.

They will have more chance to win market share over time, according to Shore Capital, as many competitors will have succumbed to the shift of online shopping and lockdown restrictions.

Physical retailers such as Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS), Next (LON:NXT) and Associated British Foods’ (LON:ABF) Primark will experience “a much-needed boost”, the broker said.

proactiveinvestors.co.uk

[qantas] 16/2/2021 12:26

Porche1945 Think you need to upgrade to the Taycan you seem to be living in the past?

Porsche how much have you lost shorting this baby?

[debsdowner] 16/2/2021 11:23

dutch

Half full or half empty LOL !

Monday is always a bad day but in any event there is too much competition out there are MARKS is behing the Superstores.

Porrsche

Sale and lease back is a short term fix and long term drag, if a company cannot pay its way there is a problem.

Sale and lease back can punish the company on long term rents this is what happened to Debenhams, they sold the freeholds which sucked the blood out of the company and that was part the demise.

[porsche1945] 16/2/2021 11:01

Watched an interview with Jeff Bezos earlier, makes you realise why companies like MKS are utterly doomed. Tired business model, huge store estate that has little value (was worth a fortune once should have sold and leased back) and was always backward looking and only jumped when it was too late. Terminal, dump and invest in growth EX UK, brexit still sucking life out of the country, has about as much hope as MKS.

[xxxxxy] 16/2/2021 07:45

John Redwood's DiaryAnyone submitting a comment to this site is giving their permission for it to be published here along with the name and identifiers they have submitted.The moderator reserves the sole right to decide whether to publish or not.Buying from the EUFEBRUARY 16, 2021 7 COMMENTSEskenzi PR and Marketing put out a press release yesterday reporting a sampled survey of 1000 people. They said that one third of those asked had stopped buying EU goods. Reasons given included extra costs and delays in  getting the goods into the UK and an unwillingness to buy EU goods given the attitude of the EU to trade with us in recent months.I would be interested to know whether your experiences bears out this survey. Does it worry you? Do you yourself seek substitutes for EU products?It is curious if true that the EU is trying to impede exports to us as well as seeking to make our exports to them difficult. The UK has made clear it was not going to impose new barriers at our ports to get in  the way of the substantial volume of imports from the EU that we have accepted, and is working with a grace period at our borders. Despite this there are reports of surcharges on card transactions and postal delays. It is also true that some continental websites have failed to collect UK VAT as required leading to an extra bill for the UK consumer who expected VAT to be included in the pricing,I myself have long followed a policy of buying UK food items wherever possible, to cut the food miles and to back UK fishing and farming. My second choice is to import from a developing country who are in more need of the trade and who have warmer  climates offering products we cannot grow here.... John Redwood

[dutch123] 15/2/2021 18:40

The end is in sight, the market knows this and can see things are easing, M&S will surge,our M&S car park was half full, never seen it half empty.

[mroalan] 15/2/2021 17:42

went to M&S today,its been some weeks since we last visited, the two large parks on the south side are closed making the place look closed, drove around to the north car park which was half empty, 80% of the store is closed, kids sect open and the food hall which was very quiet, only two tills open, looking across the way on my exit Tesco,s car park very quiet, i realize its a Mon at lunchtime but it looks a worry.

[debsdowner] 15/2/2021 13:15

SELFRIDGES had a technical breach of its banking covenants but its owned by the Weston family so is safe

[johnwise] 15/2/2021 12:53

Marks & Spencer's Best-Ever-Fit Jeans that will wash more than once Are Back In Stock – And They Are Only £19.50

Which is probably why M&S' jeans keep selling out. Not only are they under £20, they also have a range of excellent fits that will suit all body shapes.

[johnwise] 15/2/2021 12:52

Marks & Spencer's Best-Ever-Fit Jeans that will wash more than once Are Back In Stock – And They Are Only £19.50

Which is probably why M&S' jeans keep selling out. Not only are they under £20, they also have a range of excellent fits that will suit all body shapes.

[pdosullivan] 14/2/2021 23:00

One of the aspects that attracts me to the M&S investment case but which seems to have gotten scant attention is the significant interest savings that the Group can get from refinancing its borrowings. Underlying finance costs in FY20 were 231.6m, or roughly 40 percent of pre exceptional operating profit of 591m. The Group recently raised 7 year money at 3.25% but some of its upcoming maturities carry steep coupons. The December 2021 bond has a 6.125% coupon. The 2025 bond has a 4.75% coupon. In this era of banks applying negative rates to corporate deposits, it would seem rational to use some of the cash pile, which was 286m at the end of September, to chip away at more of the debt.

[netcurtains] 14/2/2021 17:33

SHOPPING:
UK consists of over 15m people who are over 70 or are at risk and that does not even include those in age range 60-69 - we know this by vaccine numbers.
For the FIRST TIME in any lockdown these 15 million will feel more free to shop - so when shops open quite possibly.... Booom.

[xxxxxy] 14/2/2021 14:16

EU food standards have resulted in thousands of cases of cancer, new book claimsA NEW book has raised serious concerns about the safety of EU food standards accusing Brussels of forcing member states to accept rules which have resulted in thousands of cases of cancer.By DAVID MADDOX, POLITICAL EDITOR OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS11:30, Sun, Feb 14, 2021 | UPDATED: 13:17, Sun, Feb 14, 2021... Daily Express...

[xxxxxy] 14/2/2021 12:36

Once the nine most vulnerable categories of people have been offered vaccines it must be time to be back at school and work. Let's start with the schools early March and the hospitality industry for Easter.... John Redwood

[xxxxxy] 14/2/2021 11:22

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said the Government is "on track" to meet its target of offering a coronavirus jab to the 15 million people in its four top priority groups by Monday.Mr Raab told Sky News's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that the Government hoped to begin reopening schools in England on March 8 as planned."We need to wait to evaluate the data carefully and allow those plans to be put in place," he said."Because we are making progress I think we can be confident we will be able to start that process."However, he said the Government would take a "careful" approach towards the easing of lockdown restrictions.... Daily Telegraph

[xxxxxy] 13/2/2021 20:07

How Brexit could change what we eat - for the betterFor years, GM food has been dubbed 'Frankenfood'. Now, unshackled by EU restrictions, your shopping basket could look quite differentByAnthony Warner13 February 2021 • 6:00am?Imagine serving up Brussels sprouts for dinner and your children actually enjoying them. Or, as a nut-allergy sufferer, being able to spread peanut butter on your morning toast. Or helping prevent heart disease merely by eating a tomato. In the not-too-distant future these could become reality. Thanks to a new review into the use of genetically modified (GM) – and its more modern sister, gene-edited (GE) – foods in the UK, your shopping basket could soon start to look very different.GM and GE foods are those produced from plants or animals that have had their DNA altered in a specific way, usually to improve taste, boost nutrition, help with food safety, or just to make them cheaper and easier to produce. They have largely been blocked by European regulators since the 1990s, although people outside of Europe have been safely eating GM corn, papaya, aubergines, potato, soya and pumpkin for several years. Foods like these have long been likened to lab-grown 'Frankenfoods' and the public is still wary of safety, so a decision to allow them into the UK might prove to be a controversial move.ADVERTISINGYet opening the door to their use could provide a much-needed boost for British agriculture and help lower the cost of our weekly shops. When Boris Johnson made his first speech as Prime Minister back in July 2019, pride of place was a vision of freeing the UK's vibrant biotech industry from the EU's 'anti-genetic modification rules', enabling us to 'develop blight-resistant crops that will feed the world'.Certainly a lot of unexpected water has flowed since those heady times, but on 7 January this year, just days after the UK left the EU, the Government announced it would be making its first tentative steps towards realising this vision, with a two-part consultation into the way genetic technologies are regulated. The review, by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), could pave the way towards a more liberal use of gene-edited and genetically modified foods, leading to a number of new products – such as allergen-free wheat and super-sweet cabbage.The furore around a tomato puréeGM food has had a chequered history, particularly within the European Union. In 1994, a tomato variety called Flavr Savr, altered to ripen more slowly and last longer on the shelf, became the world's first genetically modified food to be approved for sale. A tomato purée made from Flavr Savr was an initial success in UK supermarkets due to its competitive price, but was withdrawn from sale after a couple of years due to growing public resistance to GM technology.?In future, tomatoes could come without seeds - good news for companies making sauces and purees  CREDIT:  SeongJoon Cho/BloombergThe pushback from the EU stepped up during the mid-'90s, particularly when genetically modified soya, largely for use in livestock feed, started to be imported from the US. European regulators demanded that GM food varieties be kept separate, leading to an acrimonious and long-running dispute with US and Brazilian exporters. Perhaps sensing an opportunity to resist cheap foreign imports, the EU doubled down, bringing in some of the most stringent regulations in the world. Approval for genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, in Europe has been almost non-existent since, with several member states, including Germany and France, banning them altogether.Such resistance was compounded by environmental groups, most notably Greenpeace, which campaigned vociferously against the introduction of GM products, claiming that scientists were underestimating the potential for long-term harm.?In future we could see the development of allergen-free wheat, freeing people from restrictive diets CREDIT: Anna Kurzaeva/Moment RFYet this now looks a chronically shortsighted, anti-scientific campaign, because fears about GM food have proved unfounded. Outside of Europe, genetically modified ingredients have now been widely consumed by millions of humans for over 20 years, without a single verified case of harm. Ten per cent of the world's arable farmland is currently used for GM crops, with 83 per cent of soybeans and 29 per cent of maize grown from GM varieties. Even within the EU, despite initial resistance, the vast majority of livestock animals have been fed imported GM feed for many years, without any issues. The 'evidence' against seems to be based on a few 1950s B-movie horror plots, and some vague notions about the danger of playing God.Vitamin-infused rice and a cheaper shopping billOver the past couple of years, I have spent a great deal of time speaking to agricultural and environmental scientists around the UK while researching my latest book on the global impact of food systems. It is telling that even within such a traditionally Europhile community, attitudes are a mix of anger and frustration when it comes to EU policy on genetically altered foods. Although many in the scientific community are misty-eyed for our lost EU membership, almost all see Brexit as an opportunity to harness these powerful techniques for good.As well as benefits for consumers, such as lower food prices and improved nutrition, GM technologies have huge potential when it comes to limiting the environmental impact of agriculture. The need for chemical sprays can be dramatically reduced by using insector disease-resistant GM plants, such as potatoes that don't develop blight, or maize that produces its own insecticide. A lack of these tools has left UK agriculture more dependent on pesticides, our food more expensive and our farming less competitive. In the UK potato crop alone, late blight costs farmers around £50 million a year to protect against, a cost that could easily be slashed with the introduction of resistant varieties already developed by British scientists.Claiming GMOs are unsafe is as ridiculous and unscientific as being anti-vaccine or denying climate change, although for some reason far more socially acceptable. Approved GMOs are completely safe according to the World Health Organization in 2014, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, the European Union in 2010, the British Royal Society in 2009 and countless others. In 2016, 134 Nobel Prize winners wrote an open letter to Greenpeace asking them to ditch their campaign opposing the introduction of Golden Rice. Golden Rice is a potentially transformative genetically modified rice variety containing vitamin A, developed as a non-profit humanitarian project to prevent devastating deficiency diseases in the developing world, including the most common cause of childhood blindness.In 2012, the prospect of gene-edited food crops emerged, utilising the breakthrough CRISPR technology, which closely replicates the sort of changes achieved using traditional plant breeding, albeit with far greater speed and precision.Unlike GMOs, where brand-new genes are dropped into organisms, gene editing involves making small, precise alterations to existing genes. As a result, gene-edited plants are genetically indistinguishable from traditionally bred varieties. When these technologies were introduced in the early 2010s, many scientists held out hope that they might be subject to less stringent regulations. In many countries, including the US and Japan, this was the case, although predictably the EU ruled that gene-edited seeds would be subject to the same regulations and bans as genetically modified ones, effectively outlawing them. Issues around gene editing will form the first part of Defra's consultation, with genetic modification to follow.Full article... Daily Telegraph....

[ignoble] 13/2/2021 14:53

Yup,
Once the sun is shining, back to strolling the High Street, stop for a coffee and a bun...
Just like the good old days.

You can shove online shopping where the sun don't shine.
I manage perfectly well without it.

[xxxxxy] 13/2/2021 13:39

Exclusive: 'Universal vaccine' that can conquer all variants could be available within a year thanks to British scientistsDrugs are being developed that target proteins found in the core of the Covid virus - ending the need to keep tweaking existing jabsByJennifer Rigby, GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY CORRESPONDENT13 February 2021 • 12:36pm.... Daily Telegraph