Marks & Spencer is to close all its stores in Taiwan after just 14 months of trading in the country, dealing another blow to the embattled retailer.

Three Taiwan stores will shut in the next few weeks after they failed to attract enough shoppers and Marks & Spencer is in the process of liquidating its partnership with local retailer President Chain Store, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Marks & Spencer said the stores were part of a trial, stressing the closures were not part of a wider overseas closure programme.

The news came within a week of M&S posting a shock profit warning, which sent its share price plummeting 32 per cent, and a day before executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose faces a potentially hostile audience of shareholders at the retailer’s AGM tomorrow.

Paul Myners, M&S’s former chairman, has spoken out in defence of Rose. He said there is nobody better to see the retailer through the tough times ahead.