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Pre-tax profits at Marks and Spencer fell by 62.1% last year to £667.8m.

However profits before tax and adjusting items were down by 5.4% to £580.9m.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Stephen Springham from property consultancy Knight Frank describes the stores that M&S wants to close as a "real mixed bag".

He says: "They are some High Street stores, there's some shopping centre stores, there's an outlet store, there's some out of town stores so it is very hard to draw any sort of conclusions from the type of stores they're closing other than the fact they are under-performing and they are not really fit for purpose."

Mr Springham says that one of M&S's problems is that some of its stores are very old, with some dating back 70, 80 or 90 years. "A lot can change within that time frame and a lot has changed so really what this whole process is about is making that business or the store portfolio fit for purpose."

BBC Radio 5 live

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James Bevan of CCLA Investment Management was the markets guest on Wake up to Money. Inevitably he was asked about the FTSE 100 hitting record levels and marching towards the 8,000 mark.

"It's been a changing index so the constituents have varied enormously and right now it's benefiting from a variety of perfectly understandable reasons. So oil is doing better, oil is about 16% of market capitalisation.

"Global emerging markets have done well and the FTSE has about 20% of non-commodity sales to or from global emerging markets... and, of course, it's a global market so 73% of revenues are non-UK.

"Nearly half of market capitalisation now reports in dollars and therefore every time the pound goes down the international value of those earnings goes up and everybody thinks, OK, we'll buy some British companies in order to get our global exposure.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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Retail analyst Kate Hardcastle says that M&S needs to make sure that the products they offer are "streamlined" because "there's far too much of it".

She tells Today: "I don't know what vanity success measures they're giving themselves internally if they actually think they are becoming "digital first" as an organisation but its truly not the case."

She says: "Consumers still write to me on a very regular basis...expressing their frustration at not having the right stock levels, the sizes, the quality dipping, the prices not being competitive in market with brands like Primark.

"They have to get on with the job which is working out what they do best, getting those basics in place and getting their stores and their online very relevant and vibrant places for their customers to shop."

BBC Radio 5 live

More from data protection expert Ardi Kolah who was on Wake up to Money to talk about the GDPR.

His key point was that many of the emails we're getting asking us to agree to continue receiving emails from organisations are unnecessary - and unlawful - because they're allowed to keep sending them anyway.

"If you've got an existing business relationship... for many of us we buy stuff online all the time... so why the need for these rather annoying and silly emails which actually could break the law.

"What's interesting is we've all been deluged with these zombie emails and they're not necessary, even from people that should know better - law firms are doing it as well, which I think is even more hilarious."

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M&S, which will report its full-year results in less than an hour, announced on Tuesday that it is speeding up and expanding its store closure plan.

Where has it gone wrong for the High Street stalwart?

Kate Hardcastle, a retail analyst at Insight with Passion, says that M&S has "detached from its shoppers".

She tells the Today programme: "They've not listened to them and basically, as an organisation, they're thinking far too much from the inside out."

She says: "The consumers are coming to them, they're loyal, they have a very unique relationship with M&S - 30 million customers, many of them over 35, wanting relevant fashion, relevant products.

"We were promised relevant products at M&S in January by [chief executive] Steve Rowe, one that was fashion orientated, one that has exciting, vibrant shop floors and the challenge is, even when they commit to changes to the business no green shoots really show through."

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Australia's oil and gas giant Santos saw its shares slide more than 9% on Wednesday after the firm rejected a $10.8bn (£8.1bn) takeover bid by US giant Harbour Energy.

Harbour, which has made several bids to take over the firm, said it was its "best and final offer".

Santos said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange that the offer did not represent the full value of the company and was not in the best interests of its shareholders.

The firm also said the recent rise in oil prices would help it realise its 2019 financial targets.

Had Harbour's offer been accepted, it would have been the biggest takeover of an Australian oil and gas firm.

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There's an interesting report in the Financial Times , externalthis morning which says that Barclays has been exploring a potential merger with the likes of Standard Chartered.

It says, external that the bank has been exploring contingency plans because of pressure from one of its largest shareholders - the activist investment fund Sherborne which holds a 5.4% stake in Barclays.

Let's see what Barclays' share price does at 8.00am when the London Stock Exchange opens...

BBC Radio 5 live

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Is your inbox stuffed with emails from organisations imploring you to stay on their mailing list?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on Friday - the new laws tighten up how companies gather data about you and how they use it.

The new rules bring in many changes - including the need for "genuine consent" with "positive opt-in" - hence all the emails to anyone on a mailing list.

Ardi Kolah author of the GDPR Handbook.was on Wake up to Money. He said, contrary to popular misconception, the GDPR was already law - Friday simply marks the end of the two year implementation period.

But he also said some of the emails may break the very law they're trying to uphold.

He said the law was very clear. Going back to 2003 "you can't actually send a marketing email to someone unless they have consented to receive it or ... you already have a business relationship with them in which case you can continue to send them information... and as long as you give them the option to opt out that's fine".

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Asia markets were in negative territory on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said earlier he was not pleased with recent trade talks with China.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 1.10% in afternoon trade, with analysts saying investor sentiment had also been hurt over worries Mr Trump's planned talks with North Korea's leader may not go ahead.

In China, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 1.05%, while the Shanghai Composite was down 0.8%

Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.16% in late afternoon trade.

Dominic O'Connell
Business Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

A joint venture between France’s Keolis and Spanish-owned Amey has won the £5bn contract to run Wales’ rail services for the next 15 years.

The BBC has learned that the Keolis/Amey bid has triumphed over a rival offer from Hong Kong’s MTR commuter railways. Arriva, the transport company which has run the Wales and Borders franchise for the last 15 years, pulled out of the running in December. An official announcement of the winner is expected this morning.

The outcome of the contest has been keenly anticipated in Wales. The new franchise will not only run existing services, but oversee a big extension of the South Wales Metro, including the introduction of new electrified services onto some key valley routes. Some estimates say that the total value of the contract over its 15-year life will be about £5bn.

Powers to decide who runs services on the Wales and Borders network were due to be devolved earlier this year, but now may not be handed to the Welsh Government until 2018.

The decision continues the trend of foreign – and often state-owned or controlled – companies running Britain’s rail network. Keolis is France’s largest private sector public transport operator – but it is three-quarters owned by SNCF, the French state railway. Amey was a listed UK company until it suffered a Carillion-style collapse 15 years ago. It was then bought by the Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial, which is the key shareholder and manager of Heathrow airport.

Welcome to the mid-week Business Live.

It looks like being a busy day.

Hot on the heels of Tuesday's announcement by Marks & Spencer that it plans to close 100 stores over the next few years, we've got the retailer's full year results. That's coming up at 07:00.

Then we'll get the inflation figures for April. In March the key Consumer Prices Index measure came in at 2.5% - the target the policymakers are aiming for is 2% - so at 09:30 we'll find out if the numbers are going in the right direction.

And it was another record day for the FTSE 100 on Tuesday - can it maintain its upward momentum?

Stick with us for all that and more ...