Are they or aren't they? Marks & Spencer addresses speculation it is heading down under to ragtrader.com.au.
Speaking exclusively to ragtrader.com.au, representatives from the British department store said that recent media reports suggesting the company has made further moves towards local shores have been misinterpreted.
Recent reports indicate that on December 2013, Marks & Spencer notified the corporate regulator it had appointed Anthony Clarke, who is an assistant company secretary of the Marks & Spencer Group parent company in Britain, and Melissa Lovell, a corporate lawyer at Adelaide-based oil and gas company, Santos, to its Australian division.
However, Marks & Spencer senior corporate PR manager Amanda Glover said yesterday that while the company confirms the appointments of both Clarke and Lovell, their roles are purely as administrative directors and “the company is not active”.
Addressing the reported registration of a Sydney office, Glover said this is not an indication that Marks & Spencer is moving into Australian territory and that the “change of address is part of an administrative update that had to be made to a holding company which Marks & Spencer have held since the 1960s”.
Glover described the 'Australian division' as a “dormant account”.
She refused to comment further on expansion plans for the UK giant, except to say that Australia is a target market under consideration for the company.
Marks & Spencer, was founded in London in 1884 and currently operates over 1000 stores worldwide, including 766 stores in Britain and 418 stores in overseas countries across Europe and Asia.