Britain's John Lewis launches strategy review after profit slide

British employee-owned retailer, the John Lewis Partnership, has launched a strategic review of its business after reporting a 23% fall in annual profit, a third straight decline, primarily reflecting a dire performance from its department stores arm. The partnership also said on Thursday it would pay its 80,000 workers, which it calls partners, a bonus of just 2% of salary - the lowest since 1953 when it was omitted.

The group said it made a pretax profit before one off items and partnership bonus of 123 million pounds ($158.6 million) in the year to Jan 25, 2020, down from 160 million pounds in 2018-19. New chairman Sharon White warned it could take up to five years for a transformation of the business to show results. ($1 = 0.7754 pounds)