Macy’s has delayed the release of quarterly results after the US retailer revealed an employee had hidden at least $132mn of expenses related to customer deliveries over the past three years.

The owner of hundreds of department and beauty stores said that a lone employee who had responsibility for small package delivery expense accounting had “intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries” to hide between $132mn-$154mn of cumulative expenses between late 2021 and the third quarter that ended November 2.

Macy’s owns its namesake chain of department stores along with upmarket Bloomingdale’s and the Bluemercury cosmetics chain. Under Tony Spring, chief executive since February, the company has set out a plan to close 150 underperforming Macy’s stores while investing in 350 surviving ones.