Marks and Spencer yesterday admitted it was continuing to experience problems with both its clothing and home-ware lines as it unveiled another fall in sales and also released details of its £2.3 billion (€3.36 billion) share buy-back plan.

M&S said that the appeal of its women's wear, lingerie and children's wear lines "was not sufficiently strong", and added that home-ware sales were "too contemporary for our customers".

For the 10 weeks to September 18th, total like-for-like sales at the UK retailer fell by 6.3 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The latest fall followed a drop of 2.8 per cent in in the 14 weeks to July 10th.

M&S said it was addressing specific weaknesses in its clothing ranges but it had not been able to react quickly enough to these because of prior commitments and lead times. "By the end of August we had reduced commitment by £150 million compared to last year," it said. - (Financial Times Service)