Retail giant Marks & Spencer is expected to post lower annual profits and reveal its clothing sales revival came to an abrupt halt at the start of the year when it reports on Wednesday.
M&S cheered its first rise in clothing and home sales for nearly two years in January, but this is expected to be only a temporary reprieve as the timing of Easter is set to have impacted its fourth quarter trading.
Analysts predict clothing and home sales fell by 3.3% in the three months to the end of March, against a 2.3% hike the previous quarter.
Food sales are likely to have fallen by close to 1% in the final quarter.
This will see the group's year end on a sour note, with underlying pre-tax profits also set to dive 13% to £593 million from £684 million the previous year.
Chief executive Steve Rowe has already warned that profits would take time to recover as its clothing turnaround beds in, but the third quarter trading gave hope that it is beginning to turn the corner.
Analysts at Numis Securities said that stripping out the effects of this year's later Easter, clothing sales are likely to have been close to flat, while Peel Hunt believe underlying sales rose by 0.5%.
Jonathan Pritchard at Peel Hunt added that sales will have "regained their poise" since the Easter-affected fourth quarter.
He said: "We think that the immediate changes that management made to the offer, merchandising and service are starting to resonate with customers."
M&S has recently poached the chief executive of Halfords - Jill McDonald - to lead the turnaround in its clothing business.
She has been recruited into the new role of managing director for clothing, home and beauty, joining the retailer in the autumn of this year.
The group has also named well-respected former Asda boss Archie Norman as its new chairman from September 1, to succeed Robert Swannell, who is retiring after six years in the role.
Mr Pritchard said his appointment to the chain was welcome news. "Who better to chair a recovery than Archie?," he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here