Philip Green, the billionaire retail entrepreneur, has had to report a fall in annual sales and profits at his department store chain Bhs - just a day after his nemesis at Marks & Spencer, chief executive Stuart Rose, celebrated stemming nearly two years of sales declines at his own struggling high street retailer.

Bhs this morning reported a 3 per cent slip in underlying turnover for the 12 months to the beginning of April to £889.2 million, from £889.76 million the previous year. Operating profits dipped 13 per cent to £119.6 million, from the previous £137.9 million.

And pre-tax profits came in nearly 9.5 per cent lower at £109.5 million.

These figures combined to prompt Mr Green to scrap the dividend for the year. Last year, he awarded himself £40 million.

Mr Green, who famously locked horns with Mr Rose during his aborted £9.1 billion bid attempt on M&S last year, warned that since the beginning of April, sales at Bhs have fallen a further 4 per cent.

And he described conditions in the middle market for retailing - where Mr Green has been an unrivalled sales guru - as "challenging".

Mr Green said: "The middle market continues to be challenging, turnover being down 4 per cent year to date. Bhs has a very loyal customer base that looks for a premium value offer, which we continually work to deliver. This has recently been demonstrated by the very positive response to the re-launch of the 'Tammy' brand.

And he added that he would continue to invest in opening up new stores and refurbishing existing outlets.

"So far this year we have spent £20 million on refurbishing our stores and at the same time acquiring and opening 12 new stores. Eight of the stores opened are trading out of town under the 'British Home Stores' brand. The first fully refurbished store, Chichester, will be finished on November 10 and the other seven will be refurbished post-Christmas," he said.

But although the sales fall at Bhs echoes the woes of other high street retailers - hit by the downturn in the economy and the weakness of consumer sentiment - Mr Green is unlikely to enjoy the comparison with yesterday's success at M&S.

Mr Green and Mr Rose, previously close friends, fell out during the M&S bid saga - and had a bad-tempered public exchange on the street over tactics. They have since patched things up and recently appeared together as part of a high-profile campaign designed to rebuild sales on London's landmark Oxford Street.

Mr Rose yesterday cheered the City with a 1.3 per cent underlying sales increase for the second quarter - bringing an end to seven successive quarters of falling like-for-like sales.

The increase followed a 5.4 per cent like-for-like slump in the previous quarter and, despite the departure of Per Una designer George Davies, helped push the shares past 400p.

This was the amount that Mr Green said he was prepared to pay for M&S last May and represented the first time since the entrepreneur scrapped his interest that they have reached that level.

Today, M&S shares were changing hands for 398p, giving the retailer a market value of just under £7.6 billion.

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