M&S profits halved after cyber attack cost company £100m

M&S profits halved after it was hit by a cyber-attack which left shoppers unable to buy online from the company for months.

The British high street chain's boss said the April attack was "an extraordinary moment in time" as it revealed it made £184m adjusted profit before tax for the first half of the year, compared with £413m the year prior.

As well as disrupting its online business, the hack affected the company in-store too, leaving some shelves bare in the weeks after M&S was targeted.

M&S said it had received £100m of insurance money related to combating the cyber-attack, around the amount which the incident had cost it.

The fashion and food company was forced to suspend online orders for almost two months, with click and collect suspended for almost four months.

Revealing its financial figures for the six months to September, M&S said "the underlying strength" of the chain meant it was "getting back on track" and expected full-year profits to be in-line with last year.

One analyst told BBC's Today programme that it was reassuring that the main part of M&S's business, homewares and fashion, only saw sales decline around 16%.

"Given that they were offline for most of the trading period and really only came back online for their click and collect in August, it's pretty, pretty resilient," said Judith MacKenzie, head of Downing Fund Managers.

She said it was "outstanding" that its food sales were up 7.8% over that time despite it being "a pretty horrendous period" for the company.

The fact that costs related to the attack were lower than expected was positive, said Lucy Rumbold, equity research analyst at Quilter.

M&S had estimated that the attack would cost it around £300m.

"Although the bottom line has been impacted across key divisions, the group's resilient brand and lower-than-feared cost implications reinforce the view that the cyber incident was a one-off," she said.

"Normal trading can therefore resume and the positive story M&S had going prior to the cyber-attack remains in place."

M&S said in the second half of the year it forecast profits would recover to the levels seen in 2024, "as the residual effects of the incident continue to reduce in the coming months."