Newspapers and magazines will on the shelves of Marks and Spencer if a deal between the troubled chain and distributor WH Smith News goes ahead. Mark Cashmore, sales and marketing controller for WH Smith News, confirmed it had been talking to M&S and completed preliminary trials. "M&S is keen to do it, but it's not at the top of its priority list," he said. Marks and Spencer, which is to close six stores in the wake of tumbling profits, admitted it was considering several initiatives, "to be more creative" with underperforming stores. But it denied it was planning to rename and relaunch 50 stores as more downmarket outlets. "The brand and the trust our customers put in it are our most important assets and we would not do anything to devalue that," a spokeswoman said. WH Smith has successfully trialled M&S sandwiches in its outlets at Kings Cross, Euston and Victoria stations in London, and plans to roll them out to other London stations before the end of the year, and then to a further 60 of its outlets that already sell sandwiches. {{NEWS }}

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