M&s Case Study

the review of financial performance of m&S, it is consist of ratio analysis, business performance. It also access ability to survier. By the end of the year 2007, the EPS for the Next's shares at the end of the financial year was 144.3p which increased by approximately 15.5% to 166.6p. This rise suggests that the growth in the earnings of the company has been at a higher level than the growth in shareholders' equity. But as the margins deteriorated, the EPS dropped by 6.5% to 155.7p in the following year. A similar trend could be observed in the EPS of M&S, it rose by 25.8% from the year 2007 when it enjoyed healthy profit but as the company tried to maintain its market share in the economic downturn it had to invest in its margin. This resulted in the EPS of 32.3p representing a drop of 34.3% from the preceding year.

Price to earnings ratio (P/E)

P/E represents the number of years of earnings it will take to payback the purchase price of the share. It could also be interpreted as how much the investors are willing to pay per pound of earnings (Bized, 2009). M&S's P/E ratio has remained higher than Next even though its share price remained significantly lower from 2007 to 2009. Though M&S shares a similar trend with Next, this shows that investors in the current economic downturn that hit in early 2008 are not willing to invest further in a company. The P/E ratio of 17.3 in 2007 declined by 53% to 8.1 in the following year. The share price chart above provides evidence that the price of share has been particularly volatile for M&S. As compared to Next, M&S is a much lower geared company and investors perceive lower risk of investing in M&S's shares.

Dividend Cover

* This is the relationship between available profit and dividend payout of the profit.

* During the year 2009 M&S dividend cover was 1.43 times which way below than last year was 23.86 times. However in 2007 it was 2.53 times

* It is because fewer dividends have been paid out in 2008 which was 34.4 million. In 2009 was 355 million and in 2007 was 260 million.

* Lower dividend in 2008 is due to heavy investment in that year which shows 2.5 times more than the year before.

* On the other hand JLP's Dividend cover very high figure compare to M&S. its due to lower dividend pay out by company. This shows JLP interested in long term growth than short term dividend pay out.

3.2 Non Financial Analysis

Non financial performance measure is the analysis of performance based on the non financial information. For example, the effect of the business on the environment is increasingly important regarded as an important aspect of the entity's