SPECULATION that hundreds of East Lancashire workers could each be in line for a £100,000 windfall has been dampened.

Reports that people who work for the John Lewis Partnership are keen for the organisation to be sold or floated on the stock market have suggested they could be in line for the massive shareout.

The John Lewis Partnership, which operates Herbert Parkinson, Darwen and J H Birtwistle in Haslingden, is unique in that it is owned by all 39,000 of its workforce.

City experts reckon the group is worth about £4 billion, working out at about £100,000 per employee.

The spate of windfalls from building society conversions and the latest announcement of the sale of the AA has raised interest in all mutually owned organisations.

Newspaper reports have suggested that the John Lewis staff magazine had received a number of letters suggesting that most staff believe the group should be sold off.

But the organisation's chairman Sir Stuart Hampson, said that there was no evidence that a sale had become an issue with staff. And he has stressed that the partnership is different to other mutual organisations in that it is owned by its staff rather than its customers.

Under its current structure, employees share in the annual profit-sharing plan, which is one of the most generous in the country.

Earlier this year the 470 staff employed by the partnership in East Lancashire received a bonus worth 19 per cent of their salary - £2,850 to a worker on £300 a week.

Each year, part of the profits made across the group are shared out in the form of a bonus depending on how well the company has done. J H Birtwistle has been owned by the partnership since 1988 and the firm manufactures furnishing and industrial fabric. About 176 staff are employed at the site.

The Herbert Parkinson weaving site in Darwen, employs some 300 people and has been owned by the partnership for more than 40 years.

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