PROFITS at the John Lewis Partnership, the department-store retailer and owner of the Waitrose supermarket chain, are tipped to smash the £300m barrier for the first time this week, when the company unveils record annual results.

The partnership’s 65,000 employees are also expected to scoop the best bonuses they have enjoyed in decades, sharing in an estimated windfall of between £130m and £150m.

Staff are expected to get a bonus equivalent to about 16% of salary.

News of the bumper performance comes just days after outgoing chairman Sir Stuart Hampson waded into the debate over private equity, accusing buyout funds of jeopardising the health of the retail sector and the wider economy with a short-termist approach.

Hampson believes the stable ownership structure of the retailer — unusually it is owned by its employees — has been key to its outperformance.

He told Retail Week magazine: “If you ask me why we’ve been doing particularly well over the past two years, I’m sure it’s a result of our employee ownership structure.”

Hampson went on to argue that private equity was about high rewards coming from taking a business and stripping it to its bare minimum.

“What we need is businesmen who are committed to growing businesses,” he said.

Hampson is being replaced by Charlie Mayfield, who announced on Friday that he was breaking with tradition by appointing former Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein vice-chairman David Barclay as the group’s first independent, nonexecutive deputy chairman. Mark Price, the development director, was promoted to managing director, partnership development, to help lead the commercial direction of the business.

Last month the partnership unveiled aggressive expansion plans which, if successful, would result in the business creating 35,000 new jobs and doubling turnover to £12 billion by 2017.

It would mean 10 new department stores for the firm.

The group has emerged alongside Marks & Spencer and Tesco as one of the big winners in the retail sector, which has enjoyed mixed fortunes of late.

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