M&S sells Lifestores

Marks & Spencer has finally offloaded its ill-fated Lifestore to Danish furniture retailer Ilva, it emerged today.

Ilva, which is keen to expand into the UK where it hopes to rival Ikea, has paid £35m (€51.8m) for the 70,000 sq ft store in Gateshead and another site in Thurrock that was never opened, M&S confirmed.

The Lifestore project was overseen by Vittorio Radice, the former boss of Habitat and Selfridges, with the Gateshead store costing £14 (€20.7m) to fit out.

But after fighting off a £9bn (€13.3bn) offer for the company by retail entrepreneur Philip Green, new chief executive Stuart Rose decided not to expand the concept.

The Gateshead store was finally closed earlier this year at a loss understood to be £29 million, and stores planned for Thurrock and Kingston were never opened.

In May, the group reported a 21% fall in homeware sales after it abandoned the Lifestore experiment.

Pre-tax profits for the year to April fell by 19% to £618.5m (€915m) as the group warned tough economic conditions and intensifying high street competition meant its outlook remained challenging.