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By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Julie Astrid Thomsen

COPENHAGEN — Lego said it would lay off 8 per cent of its staff and revamp its business after reporting its first fall in sales in more than a decade on Tuesday.

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The Danish toymaker announced a 5-per cent decline in mid-year revenue a month after abruptly removing its chief executive, suggesting it is facing its biggest test since flirting with bankruptcy in the early 2000s.

Lego said it could not promise a return to growth in the next two years, a jolting acknowledgement for a group widely admired for embracing the digital era and tying up lucrative franchises from Harry Potter to Minecraft.

“We have now pressed the reset-button for the entire group,” executive chairman Jorgen Vig Knudstorp said, acknowledging the business had grown too complicated.

He would seek a return to a leaner and more efficient organization to respond to “losing momentum … which we think could ultimately lead to stagnation or even decline.”