Morrisons To Close Ten Stores

Morrisons has announced that 10 loss making smaller stores are to close and chief executive Dalton Philips is to step down after five years at the helm of the struggling West Yorkshire based supermarket.

The move was announced as the chain reported that like-for-like sales fell 3.1% in the six weeks to January 4.

Andrew Higginson, who is due to become chairman later this month, said the company's board believed the push to return the business to growth was “best done under new leadership”.

Mr Higginson said it was “time for a fresh pair of eyes” over the business, although he pointed out that the company's Christmas performance was not a factor in the decision to change leadership.

Mr Philips said, “I'm very sad to be leaving but when a board wants to make a change you accept that and move on.”

The closure plan – details of which have not yet been released could put 400 jobs at risk. With the retailer's festive trading sales figures meeting City expectations, shares in Morrisons jumped 6% following the leadership change. As part of a wider plan announced in March to invest #1 billion in price cuts over three years, initiatives from Mr Philips have included a new loyalty card scheme promising to match prices at discounters Aldi and Lidl. There have been signs that the strategy is starting to pay off after closely watched data from Kantar Worldpanel pointed to an improved sales trend. Morrisons added today that a key performance indicator measuring items per basket was down by 0.2% on a year earlier compared with 2.4% earlier in the financial year. The decline in the number of transactions was also reduced.