City spotlight on Bolland's plans for M&S online

It comes as M&S is expected to unveil a 10 to 12 per cent rise in pre-tax profits for the year to 2 April, with a consensus forecast of 710 million against 633m in the previous year.

Homing-in on performance since the year end, however, investors will be interested in how much the group's trading was boosted over the Easter holiday weekend.

That was followed by a second long holiday weekend connected with the royal wedding. Bolland, a Dutchman who joined M&S as the successor to Sir Stuart Rose a year ago from supermarket group Morrison's, has made several senior appointments.

He recruited Laura Wade-Gery from Tesco to head M&S's internet arm, and Jan Heere, from Spanish fashion business Inditex, to lead the retailer's drive abroad. Bolland has told the City he wants to double sales in each of those divisions to about 1 billion by the 2013/14 financial year.

He also poached Damian Guha from Mars, the confectionery giant, to be head of M&S's homewares, and Robert Weston, rival John Lewis's head of strategy and international development, to be food brand director. Sam Hart, retailing analyst at broker Charles Stanley, said he felt the focus at the results on Tuesday would be on further details of Bolland's plans for expansion online and overseas rather than the management shake-up.

"There's been quite a bit of turnover in terms of top management, but there's always got to be an element of disruption when you are going to shake up the business," Hart said.

"I don't think M&S needs a major overhaul, but there was a requirement for some new blood. The company has admitted it is well behind in its online offering, in particular.

"Bolland wants to develop that and overseas to reduce M&S's dependence on a cyclical UK business." Hart has forecast a pre-tax profit of 700m and is with the City consensus on dividend expectations, forecasting a total of 16.5p against 15p last time, via a 10.3p final payment.

One analyst commented: "Bolland said last November that the group would investigate the possibility of launching an online food offering.

"But I'm not holding my breath on it this week as the numbers don't seem to stack up. To make an online food offering economic you need customer expenditure of well over 50 per delivery, possibly much higher.

"But the average spend in M&S shops on food is well below the mainstream food retailers. People do top-up shopping at M&S, rather than a major shop. So the prospects for any early move in that direction are thin."

n COMMENT: PAGE 2