TIDM45GD
RNS Number : 1121H
Lewis(John) PLC
21 March 2020
21 March 2020
JOHN LEWIS SHOPS TO CLOSE TEMPORARILY
The John Lewis Partnership has taken the difficult decision to
temporarily close all of its 50 John Lewis shops at close of
business on Monday 23 March as a result of the impact of
Coronavirus. Johnlewis.com will continue to operate as normal,
alongside Waitrose shops and waitrose.com. This will be the first
time in the 155-year history ([1]) of the business that it will not
open its shop doors for customers.
As a consequence, Waitrose food offers within department stores
at Watford, Southampton and Bluewater will also close but
johnlewis.com - which generates half the brand's business - will
continue to operate as normal, alongside waitrose.com. Customers
can choose to have orders delivered to their home, or to Click
& Collect from their local Waitrose. The food halls within John
Lewis Oxford Street and Waitrose shops which share premises with
John Lewis space at Kingston, Ipswich, Stratford, Horsham,
Basingstoke and Canary Wharf will remain open, along with all other
Waitrose branches and Waitrose.com grocery deliveries.
Chairman Sharon White, said: "The welfare of our customers,
communities and Partners is always our absolute priority. While it
is with a heavy heart that we temporarily close our John Lewis
shops, our Partners will, where possible, be taking on important
roles in supporting their fellow Partners, providing critical
services in Waitrose shops and ensuring our customers can get what
they need through johnlewis.com, which is seeing extremely strong
demand.
"The Partnership has traded for over 155 years, during which
time we have faced many difficult periods, including two world wars
and the 2008 financial crisis. On every occasion, thanks to our
customers and Partners, and the long standing relationships with
our suppliers and stakeholders, we have emerged stronger. We all
need to continue to support each other and our strength and
resilience will be tested. But they will not be broken.
"I also want to give my personal thanks to every single Partner
for their extraordinary efforts, I am truly grateful. And to the
wider community for pulling together with us during such
unprecedented times."
All 338 Waitrose shops in England, Scotland, Wales and the
Channel Islands will remain open as will waitrose.com. Over 2,000
John Lewis Partners are already working in Waitrose shops to assist
with the unprecedented demand for grocery and other essential goods
and wherever possible, John Lewis Partners will be redeployed to
provide additional support to Waitrose and johnlewis.com for our
non-food online business.
We are seeing a surging demand in Waitrose and online but like
other businesses our shop footfall in John Lewis has fallen and
this extraordinary volatility makes predicting full year cash flow
and profits difficult. Although there has been a rising demand in
food so far, it may peak further, as people are asked to stay at
home. We expect Fashion sales to decline but Electricals & Home
Technology and some Home product lines to increase as people
continue to work from home and need to stay connected.
We are a diversified, resilient and strong business. Our
financial strategy is focused on improving our financial strength
and flexibility and managing cash and liquidity tightly. The
Government's decision to introduce a business rates holiday will
save the Partnership around GBP160m over the next 12 months, and in
addition, VAT and wages support is welcomed.
We have reduced our total net debts by more than GBP1bn over the
past five years and doubled our level of liquidity over the same
period. We currently have approximately GBP1.5bn of liquidity,
consisting of over GBP950m cash and GBP500m of undrawn committed
credit facilities. Our current scenario, which takes into account
the temporary closure of our John Lewis department stores, and
models a significant net cash outflow in the year, shows that we
have sufficient liquidity. However, we are not complacent; the
scale of the societal and business impact of Coronavirus is like
nothing we have seen in recent times.
We will continue to take further steps to protect our liquidity
as far as possible by reducing expenditure such as:
-- Reducing our capital and investment expenditure through
postponing or pausing projects and change activity. We had
originally anticipated spending more than GBP500m this year which
will be scaled back significantly.
-- Deferring or cancelling discretionary spend. We currently
have more than GBP500m of annual discretionary revenue spend. We
are reducing non-essential spend at all levels, freezing
non-essential recruitment and reducing marketing spend.
-- Reducing the supply pipeline in general merchandise to
reflect the impact of our temporary shop closures.
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.
-ENDS-
For press information please contact:
Gillian Taylor on gillian.e.taylor@johnlewis.co.uk or 07919
057931
Gill Smith on gill.smith@johnlewis.co.uk or 07887 898133
Sarah Henderson on sarah.henderson@johnlewis.co.uk or 07764
676036
For Bondholders information please contact:
Lynn Lochhead on investor.relations@johnlewis.co.uk or 07834
770684
Notes to editors:
John Lewis shop locations:
Aberdeen, Ashford, Basingstoke, Birmingham, Bluewater, Brent
Cross, Cambridge, Cardiff, Cheadle, Chelmsford, Cheltenham,
Chester, Chichester, Cribbs Causeway, Croydon, Edinburgh, Exeter,
Glasgow, Heathrow (Terminal 2), High Wycombe, Horsham, Ipswich,
Kingston, Leeds, Leicester, London (Oxford Street), London (Peter
Jones, Sloane Square), London St Pancras station, London (Stratford
City), London (White City), Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Newbury,
Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Poole,
Reading, Sheffield, Solihull, Southampton, Swindon, Tamworth,
Trafford, Tunbridge Wells, Watford, Welwyn, York.
Home fittings and installations
Home fittings and installations such as curtains, blinds,
carpets, kitchen, bathroom and electrical, are also temporarily
suspended until government guidelines recommend it is safe to
reinstate.
Customer care
John Lewis customers can find further information at
www.johnlewis.com/customer-services/faq/coronavirus-covid-19
Waitrose customers can find further information at
www.waitrose.com/ecom/help-information/customer-service/coronavirus
About the John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership owns and operates two of Britain's
best-loved retail brands - John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose
& Partners. Started as a radical idea nearly a century ago, the
Partnership is the largest employee-owned business in the UK and
amongst the largest in the world, with over 80,000 employees who
are all Partners in the business. For all intents and purposes, the
Partnership is a social enterprise; the profits made are reinvested
into the business - for customers and Partners.
John Lewis & Partners operates 50 shops across the UK (37
department stores, 12 John Lewis at home and shops at St Pancras
International and Heathrow Terminal 2) as well as johnlewis.com .
Waitrose & Partners has 338 shops in England, Scotland, Wales
and the Channel Islands, including 61 convenience branches, and
another 27 shops at Welcome Break locations. Waitrose &
Partners exports products to more than 50 countries worldwide and
has nine shops which operate under licence in the Middle East. The
retailer's omnichannel business includes the online grocery
service, Waitrose.com , as well as specialist online shops
including waitrosecellar.com for wine and waitroseflorist.com for
plants and flowers. Our food business is bigger than our non-food
business and our John Lewis shop sales represent less than a
quarter of the Partnership's total revenue.
([1]) Excluding public holidays, localised closures and a direct
bombing of John Lewis Oxford Street, in 1940 and on Knight and Lee
and Tyrell and Green, Southampton in 1940 and, Weston-Super-Mare's
Lance and Lance in 1942 which temporarily closed these shops.
However, Partners retained trade by setting up a desk outside the
shop and took orders to other shops
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of this information may apply. For further information, please
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END
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