John Lewis warns it may not pay staff bonus

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Greg Funnell

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Paula Nickolds was John Lewis’ first female managing director

Retail group John Lewis Partnership has warned its staff bonus may be in doubt as it reported a fall in festive sales at its department store chain.

It warned that annual partnership profits were expected to be “substantially down on last year”.

The board will meet in February to decide if it is “prudent” to pay the staff bonus, the partnership said.

In a surprise announcement, John Lewis & Partners said its managing director Paula Nickolds will step down.

The partnership has been combining the executive teams behind John Lewis and Waitrose into one team, and she was expected to become executive director of brand next month.

John Lewis said: “After some reflection on the responsibilities of her proposed new role, we have decided together that the implementation of the future partnership structure in February is the right time for her to move on.”

Bonus warning

Ms Nickolds was the first woman to become managing director of the partnership, having worked her way up after joining as a graduate trainee in 1994.

She was appointed as managing director in 2017 and had been expected to take on the new executive role in February, when the John Lewis and Waitrose boards merge.

Instead, she will leave the partnership next month.

The John Lewis Partnership is owned by its staff, who are known as partners.

The bonus for partners has been paid since 1953, but in January 2019 the group warned it might not be paid that year.

Two months later, it cut the bonus to the lowest since the 1950s after a plunge in profits.

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