A John Lewis store in Nottingham The John Lewis Partnership is a British retailer. It is a partnership, and all of it permanent full-time employees own a share of the business, and receive an annual profit distribution which is usually a significant fraction of their annual salary.
As of 2005 the partnership operates 27 department stores. Most of these trade as John Lewis but some trade under other names such as Peter Jones, George Henry Lee and Bainbridge. The stores are in a mixture of city centre and regional shopping centre locations. They are generally the largest or second largest department store in their local market. The flagship Oxford Street store remains the largest John Lewis outlet in the UK. The stores are moderately upmarket and are perceived as a bastion of the British middle class.
The partnership also owns Waitrose, an upmarket supermarket chain which trades mainly in London and the South East of England, originally formed by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. The company was taken over by The John Lewis Partnership in 1937.
The partnership in an investor in and an operational partner of the Ocado internet grocery business, which supplies Waitrose brand food.
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 1920 his son, 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. By May 2003, 59,485 employee-partners worked for the John Lewis Partnership.
On 27th April 1933 John Lewis Partnership bought Jessops of Nottingham. This store was the first John Lewis outside London. The store kept the name "Jessops" untill 2002, when after a refurbishment the store was renamed as simply John Lewis. The partnership has also purchased a number of other regional department stores, as well as developing stores in new locations. As of 2005 it has plans to open a new department store every year for the next few years, which is probably the most ambitious expansion programme in its history.
Financial performance
Partnership turnover (52 weeks to late January)
- 2004 £4,500 million
- 2003 £4,175 million
- 2002 £4,027 million
- 2001 £3,720 million
Stores
Scotland
Aberdeen
Edinburgh
Glasgow
North of England
Cheadle
Liverpool
Newcastle
Sheffield
Trafford
Central England
Cambridge
Milton Keynes
Norwich
Nottingham
Peterborough
Solihull
London
Brent Cross
Kingston
Oxford Street
Peter Jones (in Chelsea)
South of England
Bluewater
Bristol
High Wycombe
Reading
Southampton
Southsea
Watford
Welwyn
Windsor
External link
| 
