Member Article

Sainsbury’s reports £72m pre-tax loss as supermarket wars continue

Sainsbury’s has reported pre-tax losses of £72m for the year ending 14 March 2015.

The supermarket has also reduced the number of support centre staff by 500, and announced a store restructuring program which has resulted in 800 less store roles.

However it is creating 480 digital roles in London and Coventry.

Like-for-like sales excluding fuel fell 1.9% as the supermarket faced challenges from both discount retailers and other supermarkets but notes that it has never been as competitive in its prices.

The news comes against a background of supermarket struggles with Tesco announcing £6.4bn of losses this year, and Morrisons shaking up its headoffice by cutting many jobs and announcing the closure of 23 of its stores.

Chairman, David Tyler, said: “Sainsbury’s is a business built on strong foundations.

“With our grocery business at the core, we are confident that we can grow shareholder value through our increasingly multi-channel offer, and by growing businesses across financial services, convenience, online, clothing and general merchandise.

“I am confident that we have the best management team in the sector to lead us through a time of unprecedented industry change.”

Chief executive, Mike Coupe, said: “The UK marketplace is changing faster than at any time in the past 30 years which has impacted our profits, like-for-like sales and market share.

“However, we are making good progress with our strategy, and our investment in price and quality is showing encouraging early signs of volume and transaction growth.

“We know that our customers still want the best quality food at great prices and our strategy is built on our strong foundations of selling great food with a focus on quality, provenance and sustainability. At the same time, we know that our customers want value for money and we have therefore invested in lowering our prices; our prices versus our competitors have never been better.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .