THE John Lewis Partnership, the department-store retailer and owner of the Waitrose supermarket chain, is tipped to report a bumper 40% rise in half-year profits this week.

Analysts expect the group to buck the gloom in the retail sector by delivering profits of £130m-£140m at the half-year stage, up from £97m the previous year. Turnover is expected to be about 6% higher at about £3.2 billion.

Such sparkling profit growth in their maiden results will be a fillip for the recently rejigged management team of Charlie Mayfield, Andy Street and Mark Price.

The trend is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere in a big reporting week for the sector. Next, Sports Direct, French Connection and Home Retail Group, owner of Argos and Homebase, will be providing trading updates.

Next is tipped to report a drop of about 3% in like-for-like sales on Tuesday after the summer downpours and poor spring and summer clothing ranges put a dampener on performance. But the clothing retailer is expected to deliver a slender rise in pretax profits in the six months to the end of July to about £182m, from £178.9m the year before.

French Connection is expected to reveal the impact of poor summer trading at its half-year results on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Sports Direct, the sportswear retailer run by billionaire entrepreneur Mike Ashley, is due to say at its annual meeting tomorrow that trading conditions remain tough. Pension-fund adviser Pirc has called on shareholders to vote against the company’s remuneration plan at the meeting, claiming that targets set to trigger incentive plans are “not sufficiently challenging”.

However, Ashley owns 60% of the firm and will be able to force through all resolutions.

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