British expats around the world will see one of their favourite shops from home shut for good soon.
Marks and Spencer has announced drastic plans to tackle sliding profits by axing more than 100 stores.
Some food stores will survive the bloodbath, but most of M&S’s overseas branches will close.
In France, the flagship store on the exclusive Champs-Elysees will go with six other outlets.
Five are food and fashion stores, while two are food only. The brand will be left with 11 French outlets.
Executives say the stores do not make a profit.
Where the cuts will come
Other European cities seeing closures are Brussels, Belgium; The Hague and Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Struggling stores in Hungary, Lithuania and Estonia will also go, together with a chain of 10 in China.
“Our review has shown that our stores in mainland China continue to make losses and we can no longer trade with a store presence in the Chinese market,” said Adam Colton, the M&S managing director for Greater China.
Business as usual will continue in Ireland, Hong Kong, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Stores in Britain also face an overhaul, with more than 60 closing, while 200 new food-only outlets are planned.
The company has wielded the axe as profits slumped 88%, with pre-tax profits down £18.6 million to just over £231 million. M&S shares dropped from 330p to 321p on the news, but have since rallied to 328.05p.
Too expensive and out of date
CEO Steve Rowe explained that the company is reviewing fashion branding as designers seem to have lost sight of their target markets.
Shoppers complain prices are too high for non-designer goods, while some fashions are out-of-date.
M&S is one of the best-loved brands on the British High Street, but the company has failed to maintain the status in recent years, with sales and profits sliding to reflect this.
Online competition has also knocked performance, and although M&S sells around £350 million on the web each year, this has not plugged the £568 million drop in sales in stores.
Some analysts are concerned M&S will go the same way as other former high street brands who failed, such as Woolworth, British Home Stores and Austin Reed.
