| The ailing High Street giant is planning to close 27 outlets — two large stores and 25 from its Simply Food chain — with the loss of 780 jobs as it copes with plunging sales. It is also cutting 450 posts at its head office.
The company — which employs around 70,000 staff in the UK — has outlets in Dundee city centre, Perth, Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy, along with a Simply Food store in Broughty Ferry.
None of them was on the hit list released today, with most of the closures taking place in England.
M&S said UK like-for-like sales tumbled 7.1% in the 13 weeks to December 27 — its biggest sales collapse since July-September 1999 — despite heavy price-cutting in the run-up to Christmas.
The cost-saving drive also involves changes to M&S’s final salary pension scheme — by capping employees’ annual increases in pensionable pay — and altering early retirement benefits for those who joined the scheme before 1996.
M&S hopes to cut costs by up to £200 million through the moves. Analysts expect the company to report profits of around £620 million this year — more than a third lower than last year’s £1 billion. |
