John Lewis pays first annual staff bonus in four years as profits rise
The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has paid an annual bonus to workers for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose by 6%,The retail group’s 69,000 employees – which it calls partners – will share £35m, the equivalent of 2% of salary, after it recorded an increase in sales and profits,The payout amounts to about one extra week of pay,Sales at the John Lewis Partnership rose 5% to £13,4bn and profits increased to £134m in the year to 31 January, slightly behind expectations in what the chair, Jason Tarry, called “a subdued market”.
He said profits had been hit by £40m in additional national insurance contributions and £13m in new packaging levies although its business rates bill did not increase.The company fell to a loss of £21m before tax after one-offs including the write-down of old technology.That compares with a profit of £97m the year before.The staff-owned group had not paid a bonus in four out of the previous five years, after diving to a loss during the Covid pandemic, when it was forced to close all stores during lockdowns.The bonus peaked in the 1980s, hitting 24% of salary, but dropped to single digits in 2017, hitting the lowest level since the 1950s as department stores started to come under pressure from the growth of online shopping.
The company opted not to give a bonus last year despite tripling its annual profits.The retail group is in the midst of a turnaround plan, in which 16 department stores and at least 20 Waitrose outlets have been closed and thousands of head office staff jobs cut.Tarry said: “Our multiyear plan to invest in customers and our brands for the long term is working; we have grown customer numbers and achieved record satisfaction.“Despite a subdued market, a challenging lead into the crucial peak period and increased taxes, we took the decision to continue investing in the business, and have delivered cash and profit growth.”Peter Ruis, the managing director of the John Lewis arm, said it was “tough out there” and that people’s budgets were “challenged”, but added that shoppers were prepared to spend on things they wanted.
He said products from Topshop’s outlets in John Lewis had almost sold out after last month’s launch, with sales well ahead of expectations, and that the stores were trying to quickly restock,Nick Bubb, an independent retail analyst, said the profits were disappointing and “a long way short of best hopes back in the early autumn”,The John Lewis Partnership said it remained “cautious in our outlook for trading” but intended to continue making investments in its retail brands and its financial services business,It had been able to pay a bonus because of “disciplined financial management”,It said it would continue to seek ways of operating more efficiently this year, including more use of electronic shelf labels and AI, but would not comment on whether more jobs could go.
Andy Mounsey, the group’s chief financial officer, said it had long-term deals in place to protect it from higher gas and oil prices and currency fluctuations caused by the conflict in the Middle East.Ruis added that the department stores were not experiencing any problems with the flow of products and if they did, they had “many different ways of importing those products on many different routes”.In the past year, Waitrose has experienced a return to form, with sales up 7% to £8.5bn and an operating profit of £256m, up almost 13%.The department stores increased sales by 3% to £4.
9bn, with underlying profit up 29% to £58m,Last summer the company indicated in an internal update that staff could be in line for a bonus if it beat a £200m profit target,A number of workers had signed an open letter calling on bosses to bring back the bonus,The company is spending £800m across its stores as part of a long-term investment,More than 20 Waitrose stores have been refurbished over the past year, as well as five John Lewis shops.
Tarry has also pulled the plug on the partnership’s long-term plan to build as many as 10,000 rental properties in order to focus further on retail.
Microsoft backs AI firm Anthropic in legal battle against Pentagon
Microsoft has thrown its weight behind Anthropic’s legal challenge against the Pentagon, filing a court brief in support of the AI company’s effort to overturn an aggressive designation that effectively bars it from government work.In an amicus brief submitted to a federal court in San Francisco this week, Microsoft, which integrates Anthropic’s AI tools into systems it provides to the US military, argued that a temporary restraining order was necessary to prevent serious disruption to suppliers whose products rely on the AI company’s technology. Google, Amazon, Apple and OpenAI have also signed on to a brief in support of Anthropic.In a statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said: “The Department of War needs reliable access to the country’s best technology. And everyone wants to ensure AI is not used for mass domestic surveillance or to start a war without human control
‘Exploit every vulnerability’: rogue AI agents published passwords and overrode anti-virus software
Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.Under tests carried out by Irregular, an AI security lab that works with OpenAI and Anthropic, AIs given a simple task to create LinkedIn posts from material in a company’s database dodged conventional anti-hack systems to publish sensitive password information in public without being asked to do so.Other AI agents found ways to override anti-virus software in order to download files that they knew contained malware, forged credentials and even put peer pressure on other AIs to circumvent safety checks, the results of the tests shared with the Guardian showed.The autonomous engagement in offensive cyber-operations against host systems was unearthed in laboratory tests of agents based on AI systems publicly available from Google, X, OpenAI and Anthropic and deployed within a model of a private company’s IT system
Elon Musk’s Tesla given go-ahead to supply electricity in Great Britain
Elon Musk’s Tesla has won approval to supply electricity to households and businesses across Great Britain, as the tech billionaire expands his energy ambitions.The energy regulator, Ofgem, has formally granted Tesla an electricity supply licence, enabling it to provide electricity to domestic and business premises in England, Scotland and Wales.The company is expected to replicate its supply business in Texas, where it is branded as Tesla Electric and offers to help customers power “your home, electric vehicle and community with low-cost sustainable electricity”.However, Tesla’s electricity licence means it cannot offer a dual fuel contract to households. It could supply a customer’s electricity if they had a separate tariff agreement for their gas supply
Palantir’s NHS England contract ‘opens door to government abuse of power’, health bosses told
Palantir’s NHS contract opens the door to the Big Brother-style data-sharing that Reform UK would use for a version of US immigration raids, health bosses have been told.Palantir Technologies – the data analytics company founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp – won a £330m NHS England contract to deliver the Federated Data Platform in 2023.The UK government is urging health bodies to adopt FDP, which the health secretary, Wes Streeting, says will ensure the NHS is “brought into the digital age”.But there are concerns about Palantir, whose AI tools are used in global conflicts, becoming embedded in the UK public sector.A briefing by the health justice charity Medact said the “highly interoperable nature” of Palantir’s software could enable “data-driven state abuses of power”, including US-style ICE raids
‘Devastating blow’: Atlassian lays off 1,600 workers ahead of AI push
Software giant Atlassian has announced it is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 1,600 positions, and replacing its chief technology officer as it restructures to invest further in artificial intelligence.More than 900 affected positions were involved in software research and development, a spokesperson said. Most of Atlassian’s employees work in software engineering and design, accounting for over 50% of its 13,813 full-time workforce in June 2025.About 640 affected employees are in North America, 480 in Australia and 250 in India, with the remainder spread across Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the spokesperson.The company’s co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, told employees the move was “the right decision for Atlassian” in a note circulated late Wednesday, US time
Binance sues Wall Street Journal over reporting on Iranian sanctions
The US government is investigating Binance over allegations that Iran used the crypto exchange to evade sanctions and illegally move funds, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday.Binance has denied these claims and even sued the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday for defamation.The Journal reported in late February that Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, shut down an internal investigation into more than $1bn in transactions with a network funding Iran-backed terror groups; Binance fired employees for looking into the matter and allowed the network to remain active, according to both the Journal and the New York Times.A Binance spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “Binance categorically did not dismantle any compliance investigation. The WSJ continues to report the same falsities
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