Marks and Spencer shares tumbled on Thursday after the British tycoon Philip Green dropped his proposed takeover offer for the group, ratcheting up the pressure on its new management to deliver results.
The billionaire retail magnate abandoned a third informal offer, worth £9,1-billion, for the century-old British retailer late on Wednesday.
The price of shares in Marks and Spencer lost 6,1% to 341,75 pence in early trading in London, having risen sharply on news of Green’s proposal, which he had raised to 400 pence per share last week.
Marks and Spencer’s management welcomed Green’s decision, which it revealed had come even as its chairperson Paul Myners was consulting shareholders about whether to open its books to the entrepreneur.
”The board is pleased that a period of uncertainty has come to an end,” the retailer said in a statement.
But Green, the owner of fashion chains including Bhs, Top Shop and Miss Selfridge, lambasted the board of Marks and Spencer for refusing to meet him and vowed to step up already fierce competition on the British high street.
”The big winners are going to be the customers. What I am fired up about is making sure our own businesses — Bhs, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins — trade their socks off.
”And they are going to have us breathing down their neck in every street in every shopping centre in the United Kingdom. And that’s where I am going to be fired up. It is going to get my best shot. And we will see who is the best retailer.”
He added: ”Customers can look forward to great value, great product in stores they want to shop in. They will be able to decide where they want to shop and whose got the best offer.
”There will be a very clear judgement day in every street in the country. We are all represented. We’ll see where they do their shopping,” Green said in an interview with BBC television. — Sapa-AFP