John Lewis Partnership chair Dame Sharon White has insisted that the business is “back on track” and has got momentum behind it as she prepares to stand down in September.
White, who will hand over the reins to incoming chair Jason Tarry after a five year tenure – the shortest in the partnership’s history, told The Telegraph: “We’re back on track and much more fit for the future. This is a launch pad for the next phase of growth for the business and to be frank we’re in as solid a position as we could be given the five years we’ve had.”
She continued “Look at the high street names that aren’t here, but were here in 2019. The fact that we’ve come through it, the business has got momentum and the team is in place for a smooth transition. I’ve felt incredibly lucky.”
White, whose tenure at John Lewis was blighted by both the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, said: “We’ve come through once in a generation events over the last five years. We’ve had the pandemic and we’ve had inflation at a level we haven’t seen since the 1970s. We’ve come through that as a partnership with all the upsides of the partnership – transparency, service, long-term focus – intact.
“I would say it’s a watershed moment. Some of the difficult decisions we took over the last year mean that we’re now generating more cash as a business.”
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She steps down after John Lewis Partnership returned to profit in its last financial year, making a pre-tax profit of £42m before exceptional items for the year ended 27 January, up from a £78m loss the year before.
When it unveiled its full-year results earlier this year, John Lewis Partnership outgoing finance director Bérangère Michel insisted it was in “good financial health” and has secured the funding it needs for the remainder of its turnaround plan, helped by a £260m injection of cash from the sale and leaseback of 11 Waitrose stores and a new term loan.
This will see the partnership up investment this year by 70% to £542m.
White said that she was “looking forward to what Waitrose is going to be doing over the next two to three years”.
The supermarket is set to refurbish 80 of its stores as part of a near £1bn investment over the next three years and also open its first new shops in almost 10 years.
White told The Telegraph that the convenience sector will be its top priority for expansion. She said: “We are under-represented in convenience. We’re basically driving convenience through online. I think having a bigger presence for Waitrose locally and with more local ranges is a massive opportunity for us.”
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