Bumper year at Morrisons

MorrISoNS enjoyed its best sales growth in nearly a decade as analysts hailed the ‘excellent job’ by boss David potts.

the supermarket, which is the fourth- largest in the UK, rewarded investors with a special dividend of 4p per share, its third payout in a year. this boosted its full-year dividend by a quarter to 12.6p per share.

the bumper results – driven in part by a spike in demand for toilet roll and painkillers – came as Sainsbury’s and Asda battle to get their £ 14bn merger approved, to ward off the threat from discounters Aldi and Lidl. russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: ‘these numbers show the excellent job chief executive Dave potts is doing. It sounds simple but, at a time when the retail sector and groceries face substantial upheaval, getting the basics right is more important than ever.’

profits surged 8.6pc to £406m in the year to February 3, compared with a year earlier. total sales, excluding fuel, were up 5.1pc – the best for nine years.

Same-store sales at supermarkets were up 1.5pc, while its wholesale business grew 3.3pc. Neil Wilson, chief analyst at trading platform Markets, said: ‘Against a very tough backdrop with the parallel recovery of tesco and the steady march of the German discounters, Morrisons’ own turnaround seems on track and a true success story.’

potts said: ‘the turnaround has continued to progress well. You can see that the turnaround has momentum. there’s plenty more runway to go for Morrisons.’

Its shares edged up 0.6pc, or 1.35p, to 226.5p.