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Finance“Marks and Spencer Group plc reported in its Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025 that its profit after tax fell 31.3% compared with the prior financial year.”
Submitted by Witty Dolphin ae96
The conclusion
Open in workbench →The annual-report disclosures support this figure exactly. Marks and Spencer Group plc reported statutory profit after tax of £291.9m for 2024/25 versus £425.2m for 2023/24, which is a 31.3% year-on-year decline. The only apparent discrepancy comes from separate accounts for Marks and Spencer plc, a different legal entity from the group named in the claim.
Caveats
- Do not confuse Marks and Spencer Group plc with Marks and Spencer plc; they are different reporting entities and can show different profit figures.
- The 31.3% figure refers to statutory profit after tax, not adjusted profit, operating profit, or another earnings measure.
- The comparison is specifically FY 2024/25 against FY 2023/24 as reported in the 2025 annual-report package.
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Sources
Sources used in the analysis
In the press release "Full Year Results for the 52 Weeks Ended 29 March 2025" M&S states: "Profit before tax and adjusting items up 22.2% at £875.5m (2023/24: £716.4m), highest in over 15 years." It further reports in the results table: "Profit after tax £291.9m" for 2024/25 versus "£425.2m" for 2023/24 with "Change vs 23/24 % (31.3)" showing a 31.3% fall.
The profit for the financial year, after taxation, amounts to £586.3m (last year £447.7m).
Profit after tax, £291.9m, £425.2m, -31.3%.
Group revenue £13.8bn 23/24: +6% Group profit before tax £511.8m 23/24: -23.9%.
Group profit before tax and adjusting items was £875.5m, up 22.2% on 2023/24 (2023/24: £716.4m), with strong performances in both Food and Clothing & Home. Statutory profit before tax was £511.8m, down 23.9% (2023/24: £672.5m) primarily due to a £248.5m non-cash impairment of the investment in Ocado Retail Limited. Profit for the year after taxation decreased to £291.9m (2023/24: £425.2m), a fall of 31.3%.
The 2024 Annual Report shows for Group Results (52 weeks ended 30 March 2024): "Profit after tax £425.2m" for 2023/24 and "£364.5m" for 2022/23, with the change vs 2022/23 recorded as 16.7% increase. This establishes the prior-year profit after tax figure of £425.2m used as the comparison base in the 2025 report.
In the company announcement of final results for 2023/24, the Group Results table (52 weeks ended 30 March 24) lists: "Profit after tax £425.2m" compared with "£364.5m" for 1 April 23, and records the change as 16.7%. This confirms the statutory profit after tax in the prior financial year.
Statutory profit after tax6 £236.2m. In 2025/26, M&S Group adjusted profit before tax was £671.4m down from £881.1m.
M&S Group adjusted profit before tax £671.4m 24/25: -23.8% 25/26. Statutory profit before tax £364.6m 24/25: -28.8%.
Marks and Spencer’s press release "Marks and Spencer Group Plc Full Year Results for 52 Weeks Ended 30 March 2024" provides a results table showing "Profit after tax £425.2m" for the 52 weeks ended 30 March 2024 and "£364.5m" for 1 April 2023, with the percentage change listed as 16.7%.
The company announcement on Investegate for Marks & Spencer Group plc final results for 2023/24 reproduces the Group Results table: "Profit after tax £425.2m" for 30 March 24 and "£364.5m" for 1 April 23, with a 16.7% increase. This independently reflects the statutory profit after tax figure of £425.2m for the prior year.
In the Half Year Results for the 26 weeks ended 28 September 2024, M&S reports in its financial summary table: "Profit after tax 278.6" for 2024/25 compared with "206.9" for 2023/24, with a change of 34.7%. This shows the half-year profit after tax trend in the same financial year that later recorded full-year profit after tax of £291.9m.
The Financial Times markets data announcement on the M&S half-year report presents a table where "Profit after tax 278.6" is shown for the latest half year versus "206.9" for the prior year, with a change of 34.7%. It also confirms statutory profit before tax and other earnings metrics used by investors to interpret the 2024/25 performance trajectory.
Review quarterly and annual revenue, net income, and cash flow for Marks & Spencer Group PLC.
For the financial year 2024/25, Marks & Spencer Group reported statutory profit after tax of approximately £292 million, down from around £425 million in 2023/24, representing a fall of slightly over 31% year-on-year. This decline contrasts with an increase in adjusted profit before tax over the same period, highlighting the impact of non‑cash impairment and other adjusting items on statutory profitability.
The revenue of Marks & Spencer hit new heights in 2025, generating more than three billion British pounds more in sales than in the previous year. In the year ending March 30, 2024, Marks & Spencer generated approximately 13 billion British pounds in global revenue. This was an increase of over one billion pounds from the previous year, indicating strong sales growth leading into the 2024/25 financial year in which profit metrics such as profit after tax subsequently declined due to exceptional charges.
2025/26 Financials. £14.2bn Group Sales (exc. Ocado Retail). £671.4m M&S Group adjusted profit before tax.
Group revenue £17.3bn. Group profit before tax and adjusted items £671.4m. Adjusted basic earnings per share 23.8p. Basic earnings per share 12.7p.
In 2025/26, M&S Group adjusted profit before tax was £671.4m down from £881.1m. Second half adjusted profit increased 4.1% year-on-year.
In a video titled "M&S Full-Year Results 24/25", the Chief Executive summarises the year as a strong one with "a third year of growth in sales, profit, market share" and states that M&S is "now in the best financial health we've been for nearly 30 years." Although the video focuses on qualitative commentary, it references the same full-year results where the detailed documents show profit after tax of £291.9m versus £425.2m in the prior year.
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Debate
Two AI advocates debated this claim using the research gathered.
Argument for
The claim is directly confirmed by multiple highly authoritative sources: Source 1 (M&S's own full-year results press release) explicitly states profit after tax fell from £425.2m to £291.9m with a 'Change vs 23/24 % (31.3),' and Source 5 (London Stock Exchange filing) independently corroborates this, stating 'Profit for the year after taxation decreased to £291.9m (2023/24: £425.2m), a fall of 31.3%.' Furthermore, Source 4, the actual Marks and Spencer Group plc Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025, is the primary document named in the claim, and Source 3 (DirectorsTalk) further confirms the identical figures, establishing overwhelming multi-source consensus that the 31.3% profit after tax decline was indeed reported in M&S's 2025 Annual Report.
The Proponent's argument commits a source-substitution error: Sources 1 and 5 are a press release and an exchange announcement, not the “Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025” itself, and Source 4's provided excerpt does not actually report any profit-after-tax figure—so the motion's specific attribution to the annual report is not evidenced on this record (Sources 1, 4, 5). More importantly, the Proponent ignores the unreconciled contradiction that the signed “Marks and Spencer plc Financial Statements 2025” report “profit for the financial year, after taxation” rising to £586.3m from £447.7m (Source 2), which defeats any claim of “overwhelming consensus” without a demonstrated mapping showing that the annual report's PAT is the £291.9m figure rather than the £586.3m figure.
Argument against
The motion is false because the actual Marks and Spencer plc Financial Statements 2025 show “profit for the financial year, after taxation” rising to £586.3m from £447.7m (Source 2, Marks & Spencer Group plc), which directly contradicts any claim of a 31.3% fall in the annual report. The 31.3% decrease to £291.9m cited in the results announcement (Source 1, Marks & Spencer) and echoed by the LSE notice (Source 5, London Stock Exchange) is a different statutory “profit for the year after taxation” presentation and cannot be asserted as what the Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025 reported without reconciling these conflicting figures (Source 4 provides no PAT fall figure in the snippet).
The Opponent commits a critical equivocation fallacy by conflating two legally distinct entities: Source 2 explicitly refers to 'Marks and Spencer plc' (the operating subsidiary), whereas the claim and Sources 1, 3, 4, and 5 all pertain to 'Marks and Spencer Group plc' (the listed parent entity whose Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025 is named in the motion). Furthermore, Source 5, a London Stock Exchange regulatory filing by Marks and Spencer Group plc, unambiguously states 'Profit for the year after taxation decreased to £291.9m (2023/24: £425.2m), a fall of 31.3%,' which is drawn directly from the Group's Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025, leaving no genuine conflict to reconcile.
Panel Review
3 specialized AI experts evaluated the evidence and arguments.
Reviewer 1 — The Logic Examiner
The logical chain runs directly from Source 4 (the exact Group plc Annual Report named in the claim) through Source 5 (LSE regulatory filing drawn from that report) and Source 1 (official results release) to the precise figures £291.9m vs £425.2m and -31.3%, with Source 6 confirming the prior-year base; Source 2 is excluded by the explicit Group-vs-subsidiary distinction. The claim therefore follows without gap or fallacy.
Reviewer 2 — The Source Auditor
High-authority primary disclosures from Marks & Spencer Group plc and the London Stock Exchange announcement (Sources 1 and 5) explicitly report statutory profit after tax of £291.9m for 2024/25 versus £425.2m for 2023/24, stated as a 31.3% decrease, and the prior-year comparator is corroborated by the 2024 annual report/RNS materials (Sources 6, 7, 10, 11). The only apparent conflict (Source 2) is a different set of accounts for “Marks and Spencer plc” (a different legal entity and scope than “Marks and Spencer Group plc” referenced in the claim), so the most reliable, relevant, and properly scoped sources support that the Group's 2025 annual-report package reported a 31.3% fall in profit after tax year-on-year.
Reviewer 3 — The Precision Analyst
The claim's stated figure of a 31.3% fall in profit after tax is fully supported by Source 1, Source 3, and Source 5, which confirm that Marks and Spencer Group plc's statutory profit after tax fell from £425.2m to £291.9m. The opponent's counterargument conflates the parent entity (Marks and Spencer Group plc) with its operating subsidiary (Marks and Spencer plc, Source 2), making the claim entirely true as worded for the group's annual report.