John Lewis Partnership in understood to be in talks about raising as much as £150m from a sale and leaseback deal of a dozen Waitrose supermarkets.
The business will begin marketing the stores from next week, which are predominantly located in the south of England with 20-year inflation-linked leases, Bloomberg reported.
CBRE is understood to be acting as property agent, but sources told the publication that there was no certainty a deal would take place.
Subscribe to Retail Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest news straight into your inbox each morning
It comes as John Lewis Partnership recently pushed back its turnaround plan by an extra two years, with chairwoman Sharon White blaming stubbornly high inflation and the “cost-of-living crunch” for hindering the process.
It is thought the business is facing challenges in raising the extra capital it needs to fund its grand turnaround plan.
White was forced to defend the Partnership structure back in March following reports she was seeking external investment that could potentially put its mutual model at risk.
The business narrowed its first-half loss of £57.3m earlier this month, a 14% improvement on last year, helped by a 2% increase in total sales.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
She doesn’t have a plan so she’s going to sell the family silver until nothing is left.
Sadly I totally agree! The sooner they stop all this nonsense the better!
Spot on
Talk about can’t see the wood for the trees. The more JLP leadership doubles down on their “turnaround plan” the worse the outcomes!
You don’t put a Civil Servant into a business, do you?
Still, ESG up
Agree. Got the Gordon Brown degree in business studies.
Shelves are partially empty, the Essentials packaging looks cheap and they are marketing on a budget pricing to try and be down with the Aldis and Lidls. It won’t matter how they try and price cut they are shooting themselves in both feet. They will still be perceived as that posh shop!
The reason a many shop at Waities is because of what used to be a perception of high quality and service. That is disappearing sadly. There are emptier shelves and more self check outs. If I want that I’ll go to Aldi and Lidl. Just look at M&S’s food offering. Well stocked shelves and attractive packaging. Yes pricier but I am now shopping more there than I used to!
Well said
SW has no plan. Sale & Lease back releases quick cash at a huge cost. It is always a red flag when companies do this
A very slippery slope for this business model, put everyone at risk except for the senior management
SW changed all JLP ethos. From a level of 80% of our shopping expenditure to 10% in past few years, shows how our shopping has moved to other super markets.
As rightly mentioned deteriorating food quality, empty shelves , stopping free coffee and newspaper ( again they have re started)..
The faster you get rid of SW and put a guy who has consumer exposure will help. Look how M&S has turned around their cloth business