...During March, FiBA (Marks & Spencer's Franchise licensee) temporarily closed all stores in Ukraine. Colleagues were paid 3 months wages in advance and offered the opportunity of accommodation in Romania or Moldova. There has been no damage to the stores although one third party warehouse used by our Franchise partner was destroyed at night with no one on site.

In April, a few stores have resumed trading on and off when it is safe to do so...

M&S does not operate stores or have any employees in Russia. Our Turkish Franchise licensee holds the rights to trade under the M&S banner in Ukraine and Russia. We suspended deliveries to Russia and have no plans to reinstate them. We are actively discussing the future of the business with our ranchise licensee.

Our Franchise licensee has identified a small number of operational and process dependencies between their Russian and Ukraine business. As part of our ongoing discussion, FiBA are exploring all operational possibilities for Ukraine so it can continue to trade independent of what happens to the Russia business...