Restructuring and redundancy costs were a factor in the drop in pre-tax profits at the John Lewis Partnership for the six months to July 29th, 2017. The drop of 53.3 per cent to £26.6 million was despite modest increases in sales, Waitrose delivered revenues of £3.32 billion and John Lewis £2.07 billion, both up by 2.3 per cent over the same period last year.
Chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield said that the overall results marked a solid performance in a difficult market. “As we anticipated in our full year results statement in March, the first half of this year has seen inflationary pressures driven by exchange rates and political uncertainty. These have dampened customer demand, especially in categories connected to the housing market. Against that backdrop, our market share gains in fashion stood out”.
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