M&S online services to face disruption until July

Marks & Spencer has said its online services will continue to be disrupted until July due to last month’s cyber-attack.

Customers have been unable to order online for the past three weeks.

“We expect online disruption to continue throughout June and into July as we restart, then ramp up operations,” the firm said.

M&S estimates that the cyber-attack will reduce profits for the current year by around £300m.

The firm said there was more work to be done restoring systems, operations and services over the next few months, but it hoped to come out of the process “a much stronger business”.

The food, clothing, and homewares chain reported a rise in sales and profits in the year that ended in March, just before the hack disrupted services at the end of April.

Profit before tax and adjusting items was up 22% to £875m, while sales rose 6.1%.

M&S chief executive Stuart Machin said the turnaround strategy that he started three years ago had put M&S in it “best financial health for nearly 30 years”.