Woolworths has posted a statutory loss of $1.235 billion for the 2015-16 financial year, a far cry from last year’s $2.146 billion profit.

The supermarket giant reported the result on Thursday morning, a day after announcing it will sell off more than half a billion dollars of hardware when it closes all Masters stores, the failed Bunnings rival, by 11 December.

Thursday’s loss was heavily impacted by writedowns as a result of the failed hardware experiment. It reduced the value of its assets by $4.01 billion before tax, mainly because of Masters.

Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) for its food and petrol sales declined 40.8 per cent to $1.76 billion, compared to $2.97 billion a year earlier.

Big W’s earnings before interest and tax also slumped to a loss of $14.9 million, compared to earnings of $111.7 million last year, a decline of 113 per cent.

Total revenue for 2016 was reduced by 0.8 per cent to $60.65 billion.

This resulted in some bad news for investors. The supermarket declared a final dividend of 33 cents per share, which brought the full payout for 2015-16 to 77 cents per share — compared to 139 cents in 2014-15.

– with ABC and AAP