John Lewis has warned it could ditch the annual bonus for its 81,000 employees as it flagged another big fall in profits and announced the departure of its department store boss. Paula Nickolds, who has been at the partnership for 25 years, is stepping down by mutual agreement next month before a previously announced management restructure. She has led the department store chain for three years, during which its profits have dived from more than £250m to potentially less than £50m this year. Nickolds said she was leaving after “some reflection on the responsibilities of her proposed new role” under the new chairman, Dame Sharon White, who takes the helm in early February. Nickolds’ departure comes as Rob Collins, the boss of Waitrose, exits this month. The retail group, which owns Waitrose supermarkets as well as its namesake department store chain, said it would consider next month whether to axe the bonus payment to staff for the first time in 67 years after sales fell by 1.8% over the key Christmas period.
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) shares fell sharply after its Christmas sales were dented by rivals’ discounts as well as its own buying mistakes after it stocked up on too many men’s skinny jeans and mince pies. A pickup in trade in M&S food halls over the holiday period helped the high street retailer deliver its first positive quarterly sales in three years but the success of its resurgent food division was overshadowed by higher levels of waste, which eroded profitability. The chief executive, Steve Rowe, said its clothing division had faced a challenging trading environment in the lead-up to Christmas: “There was unprecedented discounting by competitors between Black Friday and Christmas and that made December a challenging month and affected our gifting sales.”
Tesco (TSCO) has emerged as one of the winners from a lacklustre Christmas for Britain’s biggest supermarket chains. The festive season is usually a boom time for food retailers as Britons splash out on festive fare but “subdued” consumer confidence has knocked demand this year, with Tesco leading the field with a small decline in sales at its established UK stores. Its chief executive, Dave Lewis, said: “We recognise that the market is subdued but against that and a strong performance last year we managed to perform very well.” Like-for-like sales at the UK’s biggest supermarket chain fell 0.2% in the 19 weeks to 4 January 2020, while Sainsbury’s fell 0.7% and Morrisons was down 1.7% over similar periods. The big four supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, the Walmart owned-Asda and Morrisons – recorded the lowest sales growth over the Christmas trading period in at least four years, industry data has shown.
Willie Walsh, the chief executive of the British Airways and Iberia owner, International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG), is to stand down from the post in March. He will be succeeded by Luis Gallego, the Iberia chief executive. IAG said Walsh, 58, would quit as CEO on 26 March and officially retire on 30 June. He announced in late October that he would step down within two years, after 15 years at BA. The parent group, IAG, also owns the Irish airline Aer Lingus and other budget carriers, including Spain’s Vueling. Walsh joined Aer Lingus in 1979 as a cadet pilot and became chief executive in 2001. At the then-government-controlled airline he was known as “Slasher” Walsh for cutting 2,500 jobs and turning the loss-making carrier around.
