M&S decides to focus on food as it ends latest international hokey cokey

The retailer's strategy shift is a tacit admission that its womenswear business cannot be fixed

New openings will focus on food, a business M&S has made a consistent success of (Reuters)

M&S has confirmed its Mexit from a large part of the world, ending its European hokey cokey as it tries to earn a crust in a chilly retail climate. First we’re in then we’re out, we’re going to shake it all about.

It’s rather appropriate that just as Britain withdraws from Europe, one of its most iconic retailers is doing the same thing.

The difference is that while Brexit is all anyone’s talking about, the departure from the Champs Élysées of a shop that’s as British as roast beef on a Sunday will be lucky to elicit much more than a gallic shrug from the few non-expat Parisians that even notice.

The real problem for M&S is this: while Brits would notice its departure from their high streets, it’s questionable whether anyone beyond nostalgia buffs would care.

Chief executive Steve Rowe is the latest man hired to fix the womenswear business by which M&S has always been judged. He would never admit it, but faced with an 18.6 per cent fall in underling pre-tax profits (to £231m) driven by stocking clothes too few want to buy, he has decided he’s not even going to try.

In so doing he’s bitten a bullet none of his recent predecessors had the guts to bite.

Mr Rowe is closing 60 existing UK stores as well as 53 international ones. New openings will focus on food, a business M&S has made a consistent success of.

The strategic shift is going to be expensive. Those closures are expected to cost the company £350m. It is a price that had to be paid.

M&S has no real future as a clothes retailer. Mr Rowe deserves some credit for realising that, even if he can’t quite bring himself to say it. His predecessors kept doing the hokey cokey. We’ll try this, we’ll try that, then we’ll shake it all about. They never found a way to make M&S relevant to the modern consumer.

Mr Rowe might have found the magic formula. The fancy convenience fodder that M&S specialises in – treats that time poor people with decent salaries can pick up on their way home from the office – lends itself quite well to bricks and mortar shops. It’s a way M&S might survive an online revolution it has struggled to cope with.

The question in investors minds, however, will be on the new strategy’s long-term sustainability. Tastes change, in retail as well as in food. Grocers that fail to adapt pay a brutal price. Just look at the recent travails of Tesco and Morrisons.

M&S Food’s margins are not high and competition is intense. As the other parts of its business enter a more or less managed decline, M&S is going to be left all but naked if its fumbles with its food focus. And it’s cold out there on the high street.