The proprietor of John Lewis and Waitrose has mentioned its losses widened to £88m within the first half of this 12 months, because it took a success from restructuring prices in addition to new tax and regulatory fees.
John Lewis Partnership, which operates 36 department shops and greater than 300 Waitrose supermarkets, mentioned new packaging laws and nationwide insurance coverage funds had price it £29m, whereas it spent £54m on restructuring its enterprise.
Consequently, the employee-owned group posted a near-tripling of pre-tax losses from £30m over the identical interval a 12 months earlier than, regardless of a 4% rise in gross sales to £6.2bn within the six months to 26 July.
The group mentioned it anticipated the “macroeconomic surroundings to stay difficult”, however it was stepping up funding in order that it was “positioned to ship full-year revenue progress”.
Gross sales at Waitrose rose by 6% to £4.1bn whereas the department shops’ gross sales rose by 2% to £2.1bn as John Lewis mentioned it was “outperforming a market impacted by ongoing financial uncertainty”.
Jason Tarry, chai of the partnership, mentioned: “Our clear concentrate on accelerating funding in our prospects and our manufacturers is working: extra prospects are purchasing with us, driving gross sales, and serving to Waitrose and John Lewis outperform their markets.”
The group mentioned it had invested £191m in revamping shops and different initiatives together with bringing back its “never knowingly undersold” value pledge in addition to shifting workers hours to busier instances in its supermarkets and department shops and bringing in further employees funded by vogue manufacturers to assist enhance customer support.
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Final week, John Lewis introduced plans to host fashion brand Topshop in 32 of its shops from February because the clothes model’s solely nationwide stockist on UK excessive streets, in a drive to draw youthful consumers and their moms. Topshop is now owned by on-line specialist Asos and its solely bodily outlet within the UK is the Liberty division retailer in central London.
