John Lewis of Hungerford in line after store closures

(ShareCast News) - Manufacturer, designer and retailer of fitted kitchens, kitchen furniture and bedroom furniture, John Lewis of Hungerford, was holding its annual general meeting in Oxfordshire on Tuesday afternoon.The AIM-traded company's chairman, Gary O'Brien, addressed shareholders on the company's performance, saying that sales in the five months to date were in line with expectations."Sales for the half year, again as expected, will be slightly behind the corresponding period last year but that is with the closure of two underperforming stores."Excluding the closed stores our continuing stores are showing a like-for-like sales growth of 2.3%."With the reduced store base and the cost reduction activities that we announced in our annual report and accounts there will be an improvement in the first half performance over last year, although we are still anticipating a loss in line with our expectations due to the seasonality of the business," O'Brien added.