The finance director of Marks & Spencer has quit just a day after its new chief executive, Marc Bolland, took the helm. Ian Dyson, who had been a leading internal candidate for the top job that Mr Bolland landed, is leaving to become the chief executive of the debt-laden pub company Punch Taverns.

Outlook Having pipped him to the top job at Marks & Spencer, Marc Bolland can hardly be surprised that the retailer's finance director Ian Dyson is off to pastures new. Still, Mr Bolland will no doubt have hoped to hang on to Mr Dyson – who knows better than almost anyone where M&S has buried all its bodies – for slightly longer than 48 hours.

Punch Taverns, the debt laden pubs chain, saw profits sink 20 per cent as the group continued to struggle in the "challenging conditions" for the industry.

The chief executive of Punch Taverns Giles Thorley surprised the market today by stepping down after nine years at the debt-laden pub group.

Cadbury will today post its formal response to the £10.1bn takeover bid by Kraft Foods, alongside its pre-close trading update. The Dairy Milk maker will make a robust case for its strategy as a standalone confectionery specialist. Cadbury's management will cite improved savings from its Vision into Action programme, continued growth in volumes and margins, and why its brands, particularly in emerging markets, are a better place for investors to keep their shares rather than being absorbed into what the company calls the "low growth conglomerate" of Kraft. The confectioner lambasted Kraft's offer of 0.2589 of its shares and 300p in cash for each Cadbury share as "derisory" and "unattractive" when it was made on 9 November.

The pubs and brewing group Fuller, Smith & Turner cheered an 18 per cent rise in first-half profits but warned that the rest of its financial year would be "significantly tougher".

The pub groups Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns bucked a weak market trend last night, rallying as investors bought in on news that regulators had decided against pursuing an investigation into "beer tie" arrangements, which force pub tenants to buy beer from landlords.

The hospitality group Whitbread, the company behind the Premier Inn budget hotel chain, should confirm its resilient performance through the downturn when it issues results for the 26 weeks to 27 August tomorrow.

Embattled pub chain Punch Taverns today put another 300 of its underperforming premises up for sale.

Another feeble British summer has taken its toll on beer sales, adding to recessionary gloom in the pubs industry, the market leader Punch Taverns said yesterday.