John Lewis staff share £181m windfall
John Lewis workers will share in the store chain's biggest bonus award after another year of huge profits.
Staff share the spoils at John Lewis.
The store chain's 69,000 employees will split a £181m windfall - an average of £2,625 each. The pay-out is equivalent to ten weeks' salary, one week more than last year.
John Lewis, which includes Waitrose supermarkets, is owned by its staff, who as partners receive a cut of the profits.
The arrangement is often credited with high levels of customer service at John Lewis and Waitrose, whose staff will also receive the bonus.
Combined sales grew 6.3% last year to £6.8bn, helping profits rise £60m to £380m. The growing appetite for organic and locally- sourced food boosted sales at the 187 Waitrose stores.
The 26 John Lewis department stores and the company's website also saw a higher turnover.
The chain shifted an astonishing 165,000 iPods last year with other top-selling items including Egyptian cotton pillowcases and duck feather pillows.
John Lewis is the first major retailer to unveil its financial results for 2007 and is expected to fare better than rivals.
Analysts say Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's are likely put out much weaker results following a spate of dire trading news from the high street in January.
The bonuses for John Lewis staff could, however, be the last of that scale for a while.
Charlie Mayfield, the firm's chairman, said trading had taken a sudden downturn at the start of February and would remain very challenging for the rest of the year and into 2009.
The warning is a sign that households are coming under increasing financial pressure as food and energy costs rise.
The credit crunch has also put an end to the era of cheap borrowing, meaning families have to pay more to service their debts.
With consumer confidence at 13-year lows, the interest rate cuts of December and February are expected to provide little comfort in the short term.
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'I've never known a period of time when there's been such an unrelenting run of bad news from the financial sector,' added Mr Mayfield. 'It normally takes 12 months for rate cuts to feed through, but it's possible that they won't be as effective as in the past.'
Despite the downturn, John Lewis will open 11 department stores over the next five years, with branches in Cardiff and Liverpool planned for this year.
Waitrose is scheduled to open around ten outlets annually over the coming years and will soon open a store in Dubai.
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