Lord Stuart Rose, former M&S boss, blasts retailer’s decline

Retail supremo and former Marks & Spencer boss Stuart Rose has launched a broadside at the upmarket grocer’s top brass.

“I genuinely believe the team that we put together between 2004 and 2010 did actually reverse the decline of the business,” Lord Rose told London Live’s Capital Conversation TV show, due to air on Sunday.

“People say we fiddled the numbers. We made £1 billion [profits], that’s only been achieved once before. We left the business with 12% market share of clothing. They’ve let it slip.”

Rose, who left M&S in 2011 and is now chairman of online grocer Ocado and fashion brand Fat Face, also said the company should beef up its website. “They should have a greater presence online. They were very late into the game. It’s a business which has been slow to espouse change.”

Steve Rowe, an M&S lifer and its chief executive, recently said he won’t start selling food online soon, although it has been trialling it.

Earnings have deteriorated as cheaper rivals pile on the pressure and shoppers have been squeezed. M&S plans to close 100 stores by 2022 as part of its aggressive turnaround plan under chairman and retail bigwig Archie Norman.

The business, however, could get an unexpected lift from House of Fraser’s troubles, after it yesterday said it was closing more than half its stores. Shoppers who buy clothes from the department store chain are more likely to shop at M&S than any other retailer, fresh data showed. House of Fraser has been hit by the rise of online players, higher sourcing costs after the Brexit vote, and hefty business rates and staff costs.

Property agent Colliers International today said House of Fraser faced a business rates bill of around £38 million last year and £40.3 million in 2018-19.