British retailer John Lewis's said it was taking an exceptional charge of £25 million (€29.4 million) after deciding to write down property assets it no longer plans to develop for its upmarket grocer Waitrose.

The step weighed on its first-half pretax profit, which fell 74.6 per cent to £56.9 million. Excluding the exceptional charge, pretax profit fell 14.7 per cent to £81.9 million.

For the first six weeks of the second half that started on August 1st, Waitrose gross sales rose a like-for-like 1.4 per cent and gross sales at the group’s department sales up 0.7 per cent on a same store basis.

John Lewis said that it would shift its focus towards investing in its existing Waitrose stores rather than opening new ones.

Reuters