LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) – British retail guide and tv character Mary Portas has written an open letter to the John Lewis Partnership accusing the group of shedding its soul for contemplating a change to its longstanding mannequin of worker possession.
Final week, the partnership, which owns John Lewis shops and the upmarket Waitrose grocery store chain, confirmed it was contemplating promoting a minority stake within the enterprise to exterior buyers to fund funding.
The partnership has warned it must lower employees numbers and scrap any bonus this yr after its clients diminished spending, prompting its annual loss to balloon to 234 million kilos ($286 million).
“Someway, lately, you have let go of the soul,” wrote Portas, generally known as the “Queen of Retailers” because of her efforts to avoid wasting the UK excessive road.
She accused John Lewis of “chasing the brand new. New methods, new folks, new id…new homeowners. However this is the factor: that is not what we actually need from John Lewis”.
John Lewis' Chairman Sharon White wrote again to Portas insisting she would make sure the partnership not solely survives, however thrives.
“Our Companions (workers) who personal the enterprise are our best asset and our possession of the Partnership will stay,” she mentioned, however added: “We have at all times been open to new partnerships with buyers or like-minded firms to share our progress.”
($1 = 0.8177 kilos)
Reporting by James Davey; modifying by Jason Neely
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