User:Davidprior/John Lewis Partnership
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| John Lewis Partnership | |
 |
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| Type | Partnership (plc) |
|---|---|
| Founded | Oxford Street, London (1864) |
| Headquarters | London |
| Key people | Sir Stuart Hampson, Chairman Charlie Mayfield, Managing Director (John Lewis) Steven Esom, Managing Director (Waitrose) |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Clothing, cosmetics, housewares, food, direct services |
| Revenue | £5.8 billion (2005-2006) |
| Employees | 64,000 (2006) |
| Website | John Lewis Partnership |
The John Lewis Partnership is a major United Kingdom retailer, operating John Lewis department stores, Waitrose supermarkets and Greenbee Direct Services. Its is the largest wholy Employee-owned company in the UK, with its employees (called partners) having a say in the running of the business and receiving an annual profit distribution in proportion to their earnings.
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[edit] History
The business was founded in 1864 when John Lewis set up a draper's shop in Oxford Street, London, which developed into a department store. In 1905 he bought the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square. In 1920 his son, John Spedan Lewis, expanded earlier power-sharing policies by sharing the profits the business made among the employees. The democratic nature and profit-sharing basis of the business were developed into a formal partnership structure and Spedan Lewis bequeathed the company to his employees. In January 2006, over 64,000 partners worked for the John Lewis Partnership, of whom half worked full-time.
[edit] Structure
[edit] Organisational Structure
The John Lewis Partnership conists of 4 divisons:
- John Lewis, comprising 26 Department Stores, a !!!!!online shop, 4 textile production units and associated distribution units
- Waitrose supermarkets, with 182 branches (October 2006) and 35,573 (summer 2006) partners. Waitrose was founded by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor and was purchased by the John Lewis Partnership in 1937
- Greenbee direct services, launched on 3rd October 2006 providing home and travel insurance, theatre tickets and travel services (in association with 3rd-party companies).
- The non-customer-facing corporate division
The John Lewis Partnership is also an investor in and an operational partner of the Ocado internet grocery business. Ocado also resell Waitrose brand food.
[edit] Democratic Structure
Every employee is a Partner in the John Lewis Partnership, and branch councils are elected by their peers. The council has the power to discuss ‘any matter whatsoever’, and in addition to an advisory role on commercial matters, is responsible for the non-commercial aspects of the business – such as the development of the social activities within the partnership and its charitable giving.
These branch councils elect branch representatives to the Divisional and Partnership councils. The Partnership Council in turn elects five of the twelve directors on the partnership board (which is responsible for the commercial activities).
Seperate from these decision-making bodies, there are a series of communications committees, comprising of and appointed solely by non-management partners, which ensure that every non-management partner has an open channel for expressing his/her views to management.
[edit] Ownership Structure and Profit sharing Partnership Bonus
As the John Lewis Partnership is owned in trust on behalf of its Parnters, its profits are distributed to its employees.
At the end of each trading year, the proportion of profit which is not required for re-investment, is calculated as a percentage of the total salary costs for that year. Each Partner then receives a Bonus payment equating to this percentage of their earnings in that year.
Since 2000, the bonus has been between 9% and 15% of the partners' annual salaries since 2000, depending on the profitability of the company.
[edit] Financial performance
| Financial year | Turnover | Profit before tax | Net profit | Partner bonuses | Profit retained |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-2006 ** | £5,764.2 million | £251.8 million | £215.1 million | £120.3 million (15%) | £94.8 million |
| 2004-2005 | £5,333.6 million | £215.3 million | £175.9 million | £105.8 million (14%) | £70.1 million |
| 2003-2004 | £5,046.8 million | £173.5 million | £148.8 million | £87.3 million (12%) | £61.5 million |
| 2002-2003 | £4,679.3 million | £145.5 million | £108.6 million | £67.6 million (10%) | £41.0 million |
| 2001-2002 | £4,459.4 million | £141.5 million | £103.3 million | £57.3 million (9%) | £46.0 million |
| 2000-2001 | £4,126.6 million | £149.5 million | £120.4 million | £58.1 million (10%) | £62.3 million |
| 1999-2000 | £3,747.6 million | £194.7 million | £161.0 million | £77.8 million (15%) | £83.2 million |
(** Preliminary results.) The John Lewis Partnership's financial year runs from February to January the next year. The percentage figure in the bonus column shows the bonus' value in relation to a partner's salary. 8.33% would mean one additional month's salary and 16.66% would mean two months' salary, showing that the staff has received more than one month's additional salary as bonus each year since 2000.
In the 1983/4 year they broke the £100,000,000 barrier for the first time.
Financial section of John Lewis' website: [1].
[edit] Credit Cards and Account (Store) Cards
On 28 March 2004, the John Lewis Partnership announced the launch of their own credit card [2] — the Partnership card. This was launched with HFC which is a division of the banking giant HSBC. It was launched as a MasterCard with a choice of four designs (effectively four different colours).
The credit card follows on from, and supersedes, the John Lewis (and Waitrose) account cards which have been around for 40 years. These cards are no longer available, and holders of these are being encouraged to replace them with the Partnership card. They can, however, still be used, and some cards from the mid-1970s are still in use.
The Partnership card is designed as a cashback credit card, and therefore has a high APR for people not paying the balance off every month. It offers a 1% rebate for purchases at stores that are members of the John Lewis Parnership — e.g. John Lewis, Waitrose, Peter Jones, Ocado. For purchases at other stores it offers a rate of 0.5%. Vouchers are sent out quarterly with money back, and these must be spent in a store of the John Lewis partnership.
