Marks & Spencer

Marks and Spencer plc (also known as M&S) is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds.

In 1998, the company became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden slump, which took the company, its shareholders, who included hundreds of thousands of small investors, and nearly all retail analysts and business journalists, by surprise. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Stuart Rose in early 2010; Rose remained in the role of non-executive chairman until he was replaced by Robert Swannell in January 2011.

It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

History

Establishment

The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew from Słonim (Marks was born into a Polish-Jewish family, a Polish refugee living in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus), and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds, called Barran, which employed refugees (see Sir John Barran, 1st Baronet). In 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 which he used to establish his Penny Bazaar on Kirkgate Market, in Leeds. Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirst's cashier was Tom Spencer, an excellent bookkeeper, whose lively and intelligent second wife, Agnes, helped improve Marks' English. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in Leeds' covered market, he invited Spencer to become his partner.