“We’re here to drive the business for every shareholder, all of them. So, I wouldn’t single anyone out in particular, but our view is to do the best job we can to deliver for our shareholders and I think starting the dividend payment is a good step,” he said.

Mr Lew’s Premier Investments holds a 20 per cent stake in Myer and will receive a dividend payout of $2.4 million for the half.

The choice to resume dividends came despite a 25 per cent fall in Myer’s statutory profit to $32.3 million, which the company attributed to the removal of the government’s JobKeeper payments. Myer had claimed $22 million of the subsidy in the first half of the 2021 financial year. Excluding last year’s JobKeeper benefit, profits jumped 55.2 per cent.

Sales also increased notably through the latest half, growing 8.5 per cent to $1.5 billion. Online sales, a major focus for Myer, also maintained their trajectory, climbing 47.5 per cent to $424 million.

For the start of the second half of the financial year, Myer has continued to see sales boom, with trade up 15.3 per cent thanks to strong growth in both its physical and online channels.

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Simon Conn, fund manager at Myer shareholder Investors Mutual, said the result was “very good”, and praised the company’s management for returning to paying dividends.

“We’ve been asking for that for some time, so it’s great to see it recommence,” he said. “There’s a lot of retail investors who have held this stock for a long time...and John and the team have really shown there’s a lot of value in this business.”

Mr King said while Myer was not seeing any significant inflationary pressures on the products it sells, he was broadly concerned about the rising costs of goods such as fuel and food, which could lead to a fall in discretionary spending.