John Lewis Partnership PLC Announces Unaudited Results for 52 Weeks to 25 January 2014

John Lewis Partnership plc announces Unaudited results for 52 weeks to 25 January 2014.

Financial Highlights
-Gross sales exceed £10bn for the Partnership, £6bn for Waitrose and £4bn for John Lewis
-Revenue exceeds £9bn for the Partnership, with Waitrose £5.75bn and John Lewis £3.27bn
-Profit before Partnership Bonus, tax and exceptional item up by almost 10%; down by 4% after the exceptional item
-Partnership Bonus of £202.5m; 15% of salary (equal to nearly 8 weeks' pay)
-Net debt of £485.8m, up £113.9m (30.6%)
-Pension deficit of £1,003.4m, up £181.3m (22.1%)

Operational Highlights
Waitrose
-13 new branches (including five little Waitrose)
-Total online services gross sales of £262m; Waitrose.com grocery gross sales up 41.4%
-More than 5.6m customer visits each week
-myWaitrose cardholders now account for 68% of sales
-56 months of market outperformance
-johnlewis.com gross sales of £1,142m, up £184m (19.2%)
-Click & collect grown by 57%
-Significant market share gains across all three categories
-New 'at home' store at Ashford and strong store pipeline
-£97m 'Magna 2' distribution centre on track
Partnership
-Net 6,300 new jobs created, a 7.4% increase in Partners
-Invested £584m in benefits to our Partners, including Partnership Bonus, pensions, Partner discount, catering subsidy, long service leave, leisure spending and the running of our five holiday centres
-£85m additional cash contribution to final salary pension scheme in January 2014

Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of John Lewis Partnership, commented:
'This has been another good year for the Partnership. Both Waitrose and John Lewis increased market share for the fifth consecutive year, profit before exceptionals has grown by almost 10% and, for the first time, we have achieved sales of over £10 billion.

As a result of our performance, I am delighted that 91,000 Partners will receive a Bonus of 15%, equivalent to nearly 8 weeks' pay. The Bonus reflects the balance of a strong trading year, but also the increased costs of pension provision. The exceptional costs of £47m, relating to holiday pay premiums (announced in August), did not affect the bonus percentage.

Our ownership by Partners has played a key role in these results. There are fundamental changes taking place in retail, especially in customer attitudes towards value, convenience and personalisation. For several years we have been adapting our business to take advantage of these changes.

That has required high levels of investment, organisational change and new capabilities. The level of change has at times been challenging, but Partners have understood and embraced the need for their business to continue to develop.