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Marks and Spencer

Marks & Spencer plc
Public limited company
Traded as
OTCQX
Industry Retail
Founded 1884; 133 years ago (1884)
Leeds, United Kingdom
Founder Sir Michael Marks
Thomas Spencer
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Robert Swannell (Chairman)
Steve Rowe (CEO)
Revenue £10.300 billion (2015)
£762.5 million (2015)
Profit £481.7 million (2015)
Number of employees
83,069 (2015)
Website marksandspencer.com

Marks and Spencer plc (also known as M&S) is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It is listed on the and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

It specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds. The company also began to sell branded goods like Kellogg's Corn Flakes in November 2008.

In 1998, the company became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden slump, which took the company, its shareholders, who included hundreds of thousands of small investors, and nearly all retail analysts and business journalists, by surprise. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Stuart Rose in early 2010; Rose remained in the role of non-executive chairman until he was replaced by Robert Swannell in January 2011.

M&S have 852 stores throughout the UK, as well as many international stores; 52 stores in India, 48 stores in Turkey, 37 in Russia, 27 in Greece, 17 in Ireland, 14 in France, 11 in Poland, 6 in Hungary and Finland and 5 in Spain.

In recent years its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after the axing of "St. Michael's" naming for their own brand.


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