UK retailer Marks & Spencer said it will have fully recovered from April's cyber hack by March next year, forecasting second half profit "at least" in line with last year after it slumped 55.4% in the first half.
The cyberattack meant the 141-year-old M&S was forced to suspend online clothing orders for seven weeks and click-and-collect services for nearly four. Clothing and food availability in stores was also hit, while additional waste and logistics costs were incurred.
But CEO Stuart Machin told reporters a second-half recovery "should give us a solid base to springboard into a new financial year starting April and set M&S up for further growth."
While M&S was looking forward to a good Christmas across the whole of the business, he said the wider retail sector was facing significant headwinds, such as a new packaging tax and higher employer social security costs.
"Our customers are increasingly concerned about rising costs and higher taxes and they're worried about the budget (on November 26)," said Machin.
Shares in M&S were up 1%, extending 2026 gains to 3.4% and have recovered most of their cyber hack losses.
"We expect news flow to continue to improve," said analysts at Investec.
The group made adjusted profit before tax of £184.1m in the six months to September 27, down from £413.1m the same timelast year. While food sales rose 7.8%, fashion, home and beauty sales slid 16.4%.
In May, M&S estimated the cyberattack would cost it about £300m in lost operating profit in its full year, although it hoped to halve that impact through insurance, cost control and trading actions.
It said today it had received insurance proceeds of £100m. It also booked £101.6m of cyberattack related costs, with a further £34m slated for the second half.
Prior to the hack, M&S was beginning to reap the benefits of a comprehensive turnaround plan that has been running since 2022 under Machin, with the group achieving its highest annual profit performance in over 15 years in its 2024/25 year.
Before today's update analysts were on average forecasting a 2025/26 adjusted profit before tax of £638m, down from £876m in 2024/25.
Meanwhile, Marks & Spencer has not discussed buying the 50% of the Ocado Retail business it does not own, with its CEO saying that such a deal was not currently in his plans.
M&S runs online supermarket Ocado Retail through a joint venture with retail technology group Ocado Group.
"No, we've never had a discussion, and it's not on my mind," Stuart Machin told reporters today when asked if he had explored buying it.
"We've got other things to do with our shareholder money and plenty to go at," he added.
