Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
John Lewis Partnership is to allow its customers to invest in it for the first time via a retail bond issue.
The five-year fixed rate bond, which will raise £50m, will be made available to 1.5m of the retailer’s cardholders and 70,000 partner employees, who can invest between £1,000 and £10,000. It has a fixed annual return of 4.5% in cash with a further 2% paid in JLP gift vouchers.
Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, said that the Partnership Bond issue was “in keeping with HM Treasury’s desire to develop non-bank lending channels to help improve macroeconomic resilience in the longer term.
“We want to explore alternative ways of raising funds as part of the Partnership’s borrowing programme, and to reach out to the retail investor.
“With interest rates and yields close to historical lows we believe our cardholders and partners will welcome a competitively-priced, innovative product of this nature with the added comfort of the John Lewis Partnership brand and reputation.”
