Marks & Spencer this morning announced it will offer between 332p and 380p a share under its £2.3 billion share buyback scheme.
The tender comes in substantially below the 400p a share offered to investors by Philip Green for control of the company, back in July.
M&S chief Stuart Rose then vowed to deliver shareholder value "significantly in excess" of Green's offer.
The Tender Offer is conditional upon, amongst other things, shareholder approval which will be sought at an EGM to be held on 22 October 2004
The news came as M&S revealed a like-for-like sales slip of 5.2 per cent in the 10 weeks to September 18.
In food, Simply Food stores traded as planned but performance in city centre stores was slightly below last year. Footfall remained broadly level on the year.
Efficiency plans put in place earlier this year by Rose are expected to show through in financial performance later this year, said a statement. “In Food we have taken steps to ensure that our Autumn product development has been more focused. The catalogue is also being rationalised to eliminate product proliferation,” it said.
“Margin and cost improvements are on track. In particular, the company will benefit in the second half from the announced improvements in margins following renegotiations with suppliers. There is no change to the guidance on bought in margin for the first half, [which is] unchanged in Food. The increase in operating costs for the first half is expected to be less than one per cent compared to our previous guidance of three per cent. This trend is expected to continue through the second half of the year.”
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