Q&A with Jamie Lyons, Acquisition Manager at Marks & Spencers
Name: Jamie Lyons
Role: Acquisitions Manager
Who are Marks & Spencer?
M&S is British value-for-money retailer focused on own label businesses, including Food, Clothing & Home and Bank & Services in the UK and internationally. Today, we operate a family of businesses, selling high-quality, great-value own-brand products in the UK and internationally. Together our 70,000 colleagues across our stores, support centres, warehouses and supply chain serve nearly 30 million customers each year.
How many locations do M&S currently have?
We currently operate from 1,509 stores globally of which 950+ are located within the UK.
Target locations?
We are focused on prominent edge of centre or out of town locations, with dedicated parking, and are willing to explore all opportunities including developer led schemes and new or existing retail units.
Within London, we are more flexible and don’t always require parking in zones 1 to 3.
Size requirements?
This depends on location but as a guide for our food stores:
· Central London: 6,000+ ft² GIA
· Inside M25: 10,000+ ft² GIA, with dedicated parking
· National: 15,000+ ft² GIA, with dedicated parking
We will also consider full line stores (food, clothing & home) with 40,000+ ft² GIA in the right locations. Please contact us if you think you have any suitable opportunities.
Planning consent?
Class E (no food restriction).
Freehold or Leasehold?
Both.
Recent store openings?
If you haven’t seen our new food store format, I’d encourage you to check it out! Our stores in Paisley, Hackney and Hedge End, as examples, have a great marketplace feel.
We’ve also seen encouraging results from new full line store openings such as Nottingham Giltbrook, Sears Solihull, and Maidstone Eclipse with great customer reactions so far!
The pipeline of new full line stores is in growth with 20 already identified over the next three financial years. These include six former Debenhams sites, in addition to Leamington Spa which we opened recently.
Additional Questions:
What is the plan for M&S moving forward?
M&S is undergoing a wide scale transformation to return to long term sustainable and profitable growth. A key part of that is ensuring we are in the right locations in the right formats for our customers, not only to ensure we can continue to drive store sales but offer an easy omnichannel experience for all customers in enabling them to shop wherever and however they choose. Encouragingly the actions we are taking as part of our transformation, not just on store estate but across the whole business, are starting to result in improving our underlying performance with both our Food and Clothing & Home businesses making important gains in market share and customer perception recently.
Favourite retail or leisure destination?
If I wasn’t allowed to pick an M&S location (of course), it’d be Carnaby Street. Great mix of and new and established brands as well as restaurants and bars so close to London’s best nightlife and the West End theatres.
Contact details?
Email – james.lyons@mands.com
Tel - 07464 646 008
Nationwide Acquisitions Team below:
Lee Nicoll (North London): 07557034656 / lee.x.nicoll@marks-and-spencer.com
Jamie Lyons (South London): 07464646008 / james.lyons@marks-and-spencer.com
Laura Wrigley (Scotland): 07771652594 / laura.wrigley@marks-and-spencer.com
Mike Welling (North & N.Wales): 07388960689 / michael.welling@marks-and-spencer.com
John Handy (Midlands): 07920861282/ john.handy@marks-and-spencer.com
Chris Smith (South): 07949686628 / chris.smith@marks-and-spencer.com
