Marks and Spencer has said disruption from a major cyber attack is expected to continue through to July and reduce operating profits by around £300 million before action to offset the hit.
The company has revealed its performance to investors on Wednesday in an update to the stock market, and said that its online sales and profits in its fashion, home and beauty department have been “heavily impacted”.
It is almost a month since the retailer was first impacted by a major “cyber incident”, reportedly linked to hacking group Scattered Spider.
Hackers were able to secure customer personal data, which could have included names, email addresses, dates of birth and postal addresses during the attack.
As a result, they have had to pause online orders for the past three weeks while payments and click and collect orders were also impacted.
Empty shelves were seen in some stores as availability of items was also knocked by the disruption with the company having to change parts of its IT systems.
M&S said the incident is expected drag its group operating profits down by around £300 million this year, but expects this to be reduced through cost management, insurance and other reactions.
Chief executive Stuart Machin said: “It has been challenging, but it is a moment in time, and we are now focused on recovery, with the aim of exiting this period a much stronger business.
“There is no change to our strategy and our longer-term plans to reshape M&S for growth and, if anything, the incident allows us to accelerate the pace of change as we draw a line and move on.”
More follows on this breaking news story
