Archie Norman: M&S turnaround has taken too long

Marks & Spencer’s chairman has admitted its turnaround has ‘taken too long’.

In a radio interview, Archie Norman also said the state of the High Street retailer was ‘fragile’ and that it ‘could slip back’ if executives took their eye off the ball.

He has chaired the FTSE 250 group since September 2017.

Norman, 69, joined less than a year after then-chief executive Steve Rowe laid out a five-year cost-cutting drive and shake-up to M&S’s clothing and homeware lines. Norman was chief executive and later chairman of Asda from 1991 until 1999 and is credited with rescuing the supermarket before its sale to US giant, Walmart.

But he said his stint at M&S had been much tougher.

Admission: Archie Norman said the state of the High Street retailer was ‘fragile’ and that it ‘could slip back’ if executives took their eye off the ball

‘M&S has been in some ways the most intractable retail challenge of my career of turnarounds,’ he told LBC’s Money podcast.

‘Asda was in a worse shape undoubtedly, but roughly speaking M&S had suffered 25 years of drift until recently,’ and he added: ‘It’s been a big challenge.

‘I think it’s taken too long. I’ve been [at the company] for five and a bit years. I wake up every day wondering ‘What the hell have I been doing?’

But Norman warned that he believes it is ‘all fragile’. ‘It could slip back,’ he said.

‘We need to maintain the spirit of the turnaround.’

He spoke on a podcast aired the day before the company’s annual meeting. Norman has led a recent campaign called Share Your Voice that aims to increase shareholder democracy and boost engagement from individual investors.

But he was slammed by organisations that had backed the campaign for encouraging its backers not to come to the annual meeting. His comments come amid a huge rebound for the company that has seen its share price rise by almost 40 per cent in 12 months.

The revival included shutting dozens of larger stores and refurbishing others to lure back customers, and saving hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

M&S overhauled its clothing ranges which allowed it to cash in as workers returned to the office and people resumed going out after Covid lockdown restrictions ended.

Profits and sales jumped in the year to April 1 – though a deal it signed in 2020 with online supermarket Ocado has struggled somewhat. 

Norman, who served as the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells between 1997 and 2005 and was shadow environment secretary under William Hague, said a key focus was for the chain to shake off its dated reputation.

‘One of the things I always hear from people is ‘I love M&S; I used to go shopping there with my mum’ and your heart sinks,’ he said.

‘That’s lovely, but it’s not what we want to be today.

‘We absolutely want to be for the modern mainstream.

‘We’re 30 to 40 per cent of the way towards what we can be.’