The high street fashion staple’s total sales were “broadly flat” at £4.1bn for the year.
Meanwhile, earnings per share edged down 0.3% to 441.3p.
Despite the retailer’s lacklustre performance, the share price shot up 6.3% to 4130p, its highest point since early January.
But the share price movement is more indicative of markets’ willingness to forgive and forget than any signals of positive underlying change, according to Kames Capital’s UK Equity Income fund manager Iain Wells.
“Markets are very sensitive to like-for-like figures for retailers however fleeting.
“Marks & Spencer is a great example of markets thinking that life’s great, even if nothing underlying has changed. There were no downgrades today because a lot of people were expecting things to be much worse.”
Wells admitted that a few of Kames’ funds hold the retailer because the stock remains so cheaply valued and provides some income benefits.
But these portfolios have very limited exposure to the stock and UK retailers in general, said Wells, reflecting the group’s cautious outlook for the UK economy.
“Fifteen years ago, the company was much smaller and facing real challenges. Then, it went through a long period of sustained growth where it was able to do no wrong, had a stable management team and the directory business rose to be very substantial and very profitable.”
