Marks and Spencer to return to FTSE 100 after 4-year absence

Receive free UK retail industry updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest UK retail industry news every morning.

Marks and Spencer is making a return to the FTSE 100 four years after it dropped out, in the latest sign of the changing fortunes of the UK retailer.

Index complier FTSE Russell confirmed the move on Wednesday afternoon, adding that technical products provider Diploma, Hikma Pharmaceuticals and Dechra Pharmaceuticals would also join the blue-chip index following the reshuffle.

M&S chief executive Stuart Machin said it was “good news” and “a reflection of everyone’s hard work” after two decades of failed reinventions, but he cautioned that it was “just another day” in its 139-year history.

“The sky didn’t fall when we left . . . and it doesn’t change our priorities today,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “We’re only as good as our customers shopping with us today tell us we are. That’s what matters, and if we do right by our customers, we’ll do right by our shareholders.”

M&S, which started life as a market stall in Leeds in 1884, was a founding member of the FTSE 100, set up in 1984.

This month it upgraded its annual profit outlook thanks to robust sales after it previously struggled with a slump in demand in its food and clothing and home arms.

Machin has been spearheading a turnaround of the chain, kick-started by his predecessor Steve Rowe, in tandem with chair Archie Norman and co-chief executive Katie Bickerstaffe. The stock is up 83 per cent in the past year as the company starts to deliver on its long promised recovery.

Its food business has benefited from more choice, lowering prices across its Remarksable range and the refurbishment of some stores to attract more customers. It has also refined its clothing and home offering since former Tesco executive Richard Price joined in 2020 to run it, with strong sales of beachwear, swimwear and linen between April and June.

In the rebalance, asset manager Abrdn, insurer Hiscox, manufacturer Johnson Matthey and housebuilder Persimmon will leave the FTSE 100 and enter the FTSE 250.

The quarterly review, which allows a handful of companies to move up and down, is based on the market capitalisation of companies at the close of trading on Tuesday and will take effect from the start of trading on September 18.