Struggling retailer Woolworths has announced $1.235 billion full-year loss after a big decline in earnings from its food and drink business and more than $2.6 billion of writedowns.

It’s ill-fated soiree into hardware with the Masters disaster weighed heavily on the retailer as did its underperforming Big W stores. Sales revenues were down 1.23 per cent to $58.086 billion.

Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci said of the results, “Sales improved over the year for our Australian Food business with comparable sales in the fourth quarter the strongest for the year driven by strong comparable transaction growth.

“However, underlying earnings from Australian Food and Petrol were down 40.8 per cent on last year, reflecting lower sales growth driven primarily by our investment in lower prices and a decline in items per basket.”