The week ahead | Business

Next will lay bare the cost of lockdowns this week when the retailer reveals that half of its profits have been wiped out.

In January, Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise, its chief executive, gave a typically thorough take on its prospects and said that extended coronavirus restrictions in January would mean that the business would make pre-tax profits of about £342 million, compared with £729 million before the pandemic. He estimated that full-year sales would be down by 16 per cent after shops were shut for most of last year. A boom in online sales has limited much of the pain for Next, which already made 50 per cent of turnover from its Directory business, which sells third-party brands on its website. Its mail-order beginnings