According to MandS, the cyberattack will cost the company £300 million

The cyberattack has severely damaged the 2025/26 profit outlook, despite M&S's results this morning exceeding analyst expectations in terms of revenue and earnings

Even though the retail behemoth has been crippled by a cyberattack in recent weeks, Marks and Spencer (M&S) announced this morning that its full-year results showed a beat in earnings and revenue.

M&S (LON:MKS), one of the most well-known stocks in the UK, is also well-known among the FTSE 100. However, it is in a difficult situation.

Due to the cyberattack that first began affecting services over the Easter weekend and brought them to a complete halt, M&S shares have dropped by more than 10% in the last month.

Given the cyberattack that has caused chaos at the company, Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, says that everyone will be watching Marks and Spencer's update.

Prior to the announcement, Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, stated, "Given the cyber attack, which has caused chaos at the company, all eyes will be on Marks and Spencer's update."

M&S is still not accepting online orders as of May 20. According to Bank of America, since the attack started, M&S has lost 40 million in sales each week. This morning, M&S confirmed that the attack had reduced its operating profit by an estimated £300 million for FY 2025 - 2026.

After the results were announced on May 21, M&S shares opened 2 points and 3 percent lower than they had closed the day before. Investor skepticism regarding the profit warning is reflected in that, though it may also have been impacted by concurrent reports that UK inflation surged to 3 percent in April.

The cyberattack is primarily to blame for M&S's 4point 9.0% share price decline this year. The price of M&S shares increased by 21.1 percent in the five days preceding the release of its results.

Investor confidence, however, seems to have been eroded by that operating profit figure as well as the announcement that it is unlikely that online operations will fully resume before July.

Results of M&S: what was revealed.

According to Jonathan Pritchard, a retail analyst at Peel Hunt, the financial results are "likely to be overshadowed by the cyber attack that M&S is under," according to a research note obtained by BFIA.

Pritchard continued, "We would have believed that news of a strong April and May so far would have accompanied a strong FY25 print, absent the cyberattack."

Pritchard was right in his prediction. Consensus estimates of 28 points per share (EPS) on revenue of 13 points 76 billion were produced by analysts surveyed by the London Stock Exchange Group.

Both metrics were exceeded by M&S, which reported revenue of 13.91 billion and adjusted EPS of 31.9p.

These findings, however, predate the cyberattack because they only cover the months of March through April. The findings verified that its 2025 - 2026 fiscal year will be significantly impacted and that weeks, if not months, of disruption are still to come.

Pritchard wrote, "FY26 is pretty much a write-off," prior to the earnings announcement. It's possible that the FY27 runes are for slower growth than first anticipated.

An update on the M&S cyberattack.

For investors, however, the most significant figure is the £300 million operating profit that M&S expects this fiscal year due to the cyberattack.

Stuart Machin, the CEO of M&S, stated, "It has been difficult, but it is a time in which we are now focused on recovery, with the aim of exiting this period with a much stronger business." "As we draw a line and move on, the incident if anything helps us speed up the pace of change. Our strategy and longer-term plans to reshape M&S for growth remain unchanged.

According to M&S, the £300 million impact on operating profits for FY 2025 - 2026 "will be reduced through risk management, insurance, and other trading actions." After the anticipated online disruption that lasts through June and into July, the retailer plans to resume and expand its business.

Additionally, it stated that this will raise its second-quarter stock management expenses.

On May 17, the BBC reported that Dragonforce, the hacker collective responsible for the M&S cyberattack, is thought to have entered its systems through a third party. "This weekend, our stores have stayed open and availability is in a much more normal place with stores well stocked," M&S told the BBC.

It has already been confirmed by M&S that the attack exposed the personal information of some customers. Information such as name, birthdate, phone number, home address, household details, email address, and past online orders may be included.

Fortunately, M&S does not keep your entire credit card number on file, so any information that is accessed will not be usable.

However, it is recommended that anyone with an M&S account change their password as soon as possible and that it differ from the passwords they use on other websites.