British retailing giant, Marks and Spencer (M&S), has today announced pre-tax profits totalled £632.5 million for the 12 months to 27 March – a rise of 4.6% on the same period a year ago.
UK like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of new store openings, grew 0.9% over the 12-month period.
Sales of general merchandise, which includes clothes, increased 1.6%.
Furthermore, food sales (which have suffered due to strong competition from Waitrose), increased by 0.3%.
However, the 126-year-old retailer which sells clothes, food and homewares, said it remained cautious about the outlook for consumers in the coming year – particularly about any impact of the emergency Budget next month.
Commenting on the results, the firm’s chairman Sir Stuart Rose, told Sky News: “We had to concentrate hard during the recession to get back to our core values, get our heads down and keep delivering.
“We came through it pretty much unscathed as a business,” he added.