Lord Simon Wolfson

The ever-outspoken Lord Wolfson raised his head above the parapet again this year on matters pertinent to the industry, namely retail rents, which he said were unsustainably high.

Next has been “stress testing” its store portfolio, and, after analysing the results, in January, Wolfson said that if rents did not come down and stores became unprofitable, Next would reduce its store portfolio from 507 in total to 150 profitable stores, and a further 120 unprofitable stores that would stay open to service online sales through collections and returns.

At the time 50% of online orders were delivered to the company’s stores.

Aside from the thorny issue of rents, Next continued to defy tough trading conditions. Full-price sales were up 4.3% in its half-year results to 31 July, driven by a spike in online sales.

Store sales fell 5.5% to £874.3m on the same period in 2018, while online sales grew by 12.6% to £1bn.

Meanwhile, profit before tax grew by 2.7% to £319.6m. As a result, the company said it is maintaining its guidance for full-year group profit before tax to be £725m, up 0.3% on last year.