Investors in J Sainsbury are used to going around in circles, but lighting a fire under the profits is set to get even more difficult.
In a by-now familiar narrative, the supermarket chain is braced for higher wage and distribution costs and higher stakes competition with discount retailers for cash-strapped consumers’ business. Underlying pre-tax profits next year are set to fall to between £630 million and £690 million, from £730 million last year, which would also be lower than the £756 million recorded a decade earlier.
Sainsbury’s shares have fallen by 14 per cent since the start of this year, which caps a much longer period of underperformance against Tesco. Over the past decade the shares have delivered a total return of only 28 per
