Who is popular today?

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

John Lewis: we don’t expect to reopen all shops after lockdown
Department store reports £517m loss last year

Earlier:

Markets: Dow hit record high last night

US House passes $1.9tn Covid relief plan in major victory for Biden

Coming up: European Central Bank meeting

8.23am GMT
John Lewis says it is taking “very difficult decisions”, pointing out that it has already closed some of its department stores and Waitrose grocery shops.
We entered this year with our financial performance already challenged - profits and Partner bonus having fallen for the past three years. We are having to take very difficult decisions to return the business to a path of sufficient profit of £400m by 2025/26.
Last year we closed eight John Lewis stores and seven Waitrose stores that were loss making, and we are in the process of reducing the cost of our head office by 20%.
We have seen limited impact from Brexit so far operationally owing to our advance preparations and the Brexit trade deal. The one area of the business that is temporarily disrupted is deliveries to Northern Ireland and we expect to resume these before the summer.
8.08am GMT
Just in: UK high street retailer John Lewis has warned that some of its shops are not expected to reopen when the lockdown ends.
In its latest financial results, just released, chair Sharon White says that the group is ‘in discussions’ with landlords, and a final decision will be taken by the end of this month.
Hard as it is, there is no getting away from the fact that some areas can no longer profitably sustain a John Lewis store. Regrettably, we do not expect to reopen all our John Lewis shops at the end of lockdown, which will also have implications for our supply chain. We are currently in discussions with landlords and final decisions are expected by the end of March.
Closing a store is one of the hardest decisions we can make as a Partnership. We are acutely sensitive to the impact on our Partners, customers and communities, particularly at a time when retail and our high streets are undergoing major structural change. We will do everything we can to lessen the impact and will continue to provide community funds to support local areas.
Related: John Lewis considering fresh store closures in response to Covid
#Breaking Retail giant John Lewis Partnership has warned over further store closures as it reported pre-tax losses of £517 million for the year to January 30 pic.twitter.com/NrXiTn2bc9
In a difficult year, the Partnership recorded a Loss before tax of £(517)m, compared to a Profit before tax of £146m in the previous year. This is the result of substantial exceptional costs of £(648)m, mainly the write down in the value of John Lewis shops owing to the pronounced shift to online, as well as restructuring and redundancy costs from store closures and changes to our head office.
John Lewis shops are now held on our balance sheet at almost half the value they were before this year’s and last year’s write downs. Before the pandemic we judged that £6 in every £10 spent online with John Lewis was driven by our shops. The ratio has fallen to £3 in every £10. Continue reading...