M and S shareholders urged to 'make their minds up'

Tycoon Philip Green said today shareholders would have to decide whether to back his £9.1bn bid for Marks & Spencer within hours of being given a strategy up date by the company’s new chief executive.

The group’s board has already rejected Mr Green’s 400p a share offer for the retailer made through his bid vehicle Revival on the grounds that it under-values the chain.

Chief executive Stuart Rose plans to outline why this is the case tomorrow morning as he gives a trading update and outlines his strategy for the group.

But Mr Green told BBC 1’s Breakfast With Frost that shareholders would have to make their minds up within hours of the up-date.

He said: “As far as I’m concerned, within 24 or 48 hours of Monday morning, it will be make your mind up time in terms of the shareholders.

“We will then make a decision very, very soon thereafter, and the shareholders will have to decide do they want to be with me and take the money today, or do they want to stay where they are.”

He has previously vowed only to make a formal bid with the support of the board, but the UK’s Takeover Panel has imposed a deadline of noon on August 6 for a firm offer to be tabled by.

Mr Green said the company was in need of “major surgery”, and said for a long time it had not had anyone with the “feel, touch, passion, flare and enthusiasm” to develop it.

He also hinted that he would be prepared to sell Bhs if the competition authorities required him to in order to press ahead with the M&S bid.

He said: “We will do what we have to do if that’s required”.

The interview came just hours after it emerged that Mr Green may have to pay millions of pounds a year into M&S’s pension scheme if he was successful with his bid.

The scheme currently has a £670 million deficit under the snapshot accounting standard FRS17.

But the trustees have warned that in the most extreme case, Mr Green could be forced to pay up to £785 million a year into the scheme for three years.

Meanwhile the group’s new chief executive Stuart Rose is expected to promise to return between £1.65 billion and £2.3 billion to shareholders when he gives his strategy update on Monday.

It is thought he will achieve this through cost cutting, including savings of more than £100 million in the group’s supply chain, and selling surplus assets.

He is also expected to announce the closure of the group’s first Lifestyle store in Gateshead and its Per Una Due teenage clothing range.

But Mr Rose is also expected to say that sales at the group have continued to fall and he may have a hard time convincing shareholders that the bid does in fact undervalue the company.

Mr Green has already secured the support of US-based firm Brandes, which has an 11.7% stake in the group, for his offer.