𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Marks & Spencer will shed light on its recovery after a major cyber-attack last year that dented sales growth and weighed on profitability.

The retailer will update shareholders on Wednesday May 20 on its recent progress and how consumers are faring amid a backdrop of global concerns about inflationary pressures.

The results update comes just over a year since it was targeted by hackers.

M&S was forced to stop all online sales for about six weeks, and it had empty shelves because of disruption to its logistics systems, after it was hit around the Easter weekend.

The London-listed firm said late last year that the incident would hit its annual profits by about £136 million, predicting that about £34 million of this would come in the final six months of its financial year.

It previously indicated it hoped operations in its fashion, home and beauty business would return to normal by March.

In a festive update in January, M&S had said prolonged impact on its stock data and management systems had affected sales ahead of the key Christmas period.

Bosses will confirm next week whether it has fully moved past the impact of the attack and how it has affected the group’s finances over the year to March 28.

M&S is expected to reveal a pre-tax profit of £654 million for the year, which would represent a 25% drop from £875.5 million a year earlier.

Analysts have said they expect profit to rebound for the current year, predicting that they will jump beyond pre-cyber attack levels.

Experts at Barclays said they expected a profit of about £920 million for the new financial year but said “the main concerns are inflation, soft fashion data, and political uncertainty”.

Earlier this week, shares in the company drifted to their lowest level for about a year amid concerns that consumer confidence will be hit by political instability and rising inflation.

AJ Bell’s Dan Coatsworth said: “Investors will be hoping M&S can draw a line under last year’s cyber-attack and provide a confident outlook, reaffirming the retailer’s turnaround in fashion, home and beauty.

“A material slowdown in the UK clothing market in the March quarter has not been helpful which is reflected in the shares recently plumbing new 12-month lows.”