The chairperson, Dame Sharon White, is in early stages of exploring a plan to change the retailer's mutual structure so it can try to raise between 1 billion and 2 billion pounds ($1.22 billion-$2.44 billion) of new investment, the report added.

John Lewis did not reply to a request from Reuters for comment.

($1 = 0.8214 pounds)

(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Graff)