U.K. Retailer John Lewis to Announce Strategic Revamp
U.K. Retailer John Lewis to Announce Strategic Revamp March 5
(Bloomberg) --
John Lewis Partnership Plc’s chairwoman is set to announce a strategic review to save the company on Thursday, just a month after taking charge of the ailing British retailer.
Sharon White, former chief executive officer of Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, joined Britain’s largest employee-owned business with the mission to complete the revamp of the company’s structure and reverse declining sales at a time when consumers are deserting the high street.
On Thursday, the 91-year-old company is to report full-year earnings and employees could be denied their annual bonuses for the first time since World War II as part of the cost-cutting strategy.
Another option on the table is scrapping the “Never Knowingly Undersold” price-matching policy, which binds the company to discounts to compete with other struggling rivals.
The revamp is expected to include writedowns related to John Lewis’s 50 department stores of hundreds of millions of pounds, The Sunday Times reported without saying how it got the information.
A spokesperson for the retailer declined to comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Irene García Pérez in London at igarciaperez@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vivianne Rodrigues at vrodrigues3@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, James Amott
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