Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped John Lewis from doing the unthinkable.
Britain’s best known mutual has appointed Nish Kankiwala, a seasoned turnaround figure and serial private equity director, as its first ever chief executive.
In the tradition of most corporate announcements, this is being painted as a perfectly normal turn of events when the impression is very much the opposite.
At the very least it looks like a tacit admission on the part of chairman Dame Sharon White that more help is needed. But it may also be a harbinger of what is yet to come for an organisation that is already in the throes of a pretty fierce shake-up.
Indeed, there are enough red flags in the 200 words that the press release dedicates to Kankiwala’s packed CV to cause John Lewis partners to throw themselves overboard the next time they are allowed on one of the company’s five yachts – that’s if the new boss hasn’t already offloaded them in a fire sale.
Presumably, the repeated mention of his involvement with private equity is meant to be reassuring, but again, it is likely to have the reverse effect.
The scars of Dame Sharon’s unflinching turnaround are still fresh, and three years into a highly-ambitious five-year recovery plan that aims to achieve £400m of profit by 2025, staff probably thought, or at least hoped, the worst of the upheaval was behind them.
One in three of its 51 department stores have been axed, thousands of partners shown the door and its bonus is expected to be scrapped again this year.
The restructuring has been carried out in the name of cost cuts that give John Lewis a better chance of survival, in that it eases the financial pressure on a business wrestling with a £1.6bn debt pile, £350m of which needs to be paid over the next three years.
But chipping away at the cost base too ruthlessly comes with serious risks.
Morale is already close to rock bottom and the scrapping of perks such as its Winter Hill golf course in Berkshire in a bid to eke out additional savings risks eroding confidence even further.
The Winter Hill Golf Club in Cookham, Maidenhead
Meanwhile, reducing the number of staff in both its department stores and its Waitrose shops is unlikely to do much for John Lewis’s reputation for great customer service, which is probably what has enabled it in the past to stand out from rivals.
The adoption of any of private equity’s tried and tested, yet tired, techniques is unlikely to redress the balance. The industry playbook is one of heavy borrowing – often to the detriment of investment – and aggressive cost-cutting.
The trouble is John Lewis has already tried the first two with mixed results so there will be concerns that Kankiwala has been brought in to think the unthinkable and present a compelling case for even more radical action.
His track record will do little to dispel such speculation.
Most recently, Kankiwala spent eight years in charge of bakery brand Hovis, where John Lewis credits him with spearheading “the turnaround of a much loved and cherished business”.
A cursory glance at its most recent accounts suggests that may not be strictly true, however.
In 2021, the 137-year-old bread-maker suffered a 73pc fall in pre-tax earnings from £13.8m to just £3.7m, a reversal blamed on spiralling costs of everything including ingredients, energy and labour.
Still, there can be no questioning the lengths he went to. Pre-tax profits of £27.2m the same year were flattered by a £38.7m one-off gain from the sale and leaseback of the freeholds of three sites in Glasgow, Bradford, and Nottingham.
In 2018, after registering a near-£12m loss the previous year, and £34m of losses the year before that, Hovis swung the axe in brutal fashion.
The company shut down a loss-making flour mill in Southampton, and offloaded two more in Selby and Manchester to rival supplier Whitworth Bros, leaving it with just one in Wellingborough.
Its headquarters in High Wycombe were also trimmed, leading to 100 job losses in total.
Dame Sharon White, chair of John Lewis Partnership Plc - Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Might a similar fate be in store for the venerable John Lewis?
Kankiwala was also at the helm when the business was sold to private equity outfit Endless in 2020. Could he prove to be the catalyst for the partnership to seek outside investment as it grapples with evaporating profits and a sizeable debt burden?
Could he go one further and recommend a break-up that sees the department stores separated from Waitrose yet still somehow preserve its sacred mutual structure?
Having also notched up long stints at Burger King, Pepsico, and Unilever, he may see more of a future in food than clothing and homewares.
Or might even the partnership itself be reviewed? White says she and Kankiwala will “work closely to ensure the Partnership thrives for another century”.
Yet, in the following breath, the former civil servant says the new structure will enable her to “focus on the preservation of the Partnership model”, which suggests it is facing an existential threat.
These are difficult questions that probably need asking. But having repeatedly got her hands dirty, perhaps White feels they would be better coming from someone else.
