Sainsbury’s (LON:SBRY) recorded its first loss in a decade after a year of poor sales and sizeable write-downs.
The UK’s third largest supermarket chain said like-for-like sales for the year, including fuel, were 3.6% lower in the year to March 2015.
It made a loss before tax of £72mln compared to a profit of £898mln the year before as underlying pre-tax profit fell almost 15% to £681mln.
Total one-off costs totalled £713mln in write-offs linked to the scrapping of proposed new stores and the devaluation of under-performing stores.
There was also a loss of £900mln in property value due mainly to a reduction in market rental values, the company said.
Mike Coupe, chief executive, said: “I believe we are taking the right decisions to ensure we remain fit for the future and are able to capitalise on our many growth opportunities.”
“The UK marketplace is changing faster than at any time in the past 30 years which has impacted our profits, like-for-like sales and market share.”
The property write-down was not as substantial as the £4.7bn write-down announced by rival Tesco (LON:TSCO) on its way to a £6.38bn loss in 2014.
Chief financial officer John Rogers said: “When you look at our performance against our peers, we have outperformed both on a sales and on a profit basis.”