Morrisons reports 52% profit fall

Morrisons has reported full-year profits of £345m, a drop of 52% on 2013-14 earnings and the worst results for the supermarket chain in eight years.

Company chairman Andrew Higginson said: "Last year's trading environment was tough, and we don't expect any change this year.

"David Potts joins as chief executive next week. Under his leadership, we will focus on building trading momentum and being more like the Morrisons our customers expect.

"We will invest more into the proposition and put customers at the heart of everything we do. We will listen and respond to our customers, and work hard every day to improve the shopping trip."

Former Tesco executive Potts replaces Dalton Philips, who announced his departure in January after five years running Morrisons.

Like its main rivals, Morrisons is feeling the strain of waging price wars against the burgeoning super discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Morrisons' current earning represents a third straight year of decline. It reported profits of £785m in 2013-14.

The supermarket also wrote down the value of its property portfolio by £1.3bn, as it battles tough market conditions. As a result it posted an overall loss before tax of £792m.

Morrisons said that same-store sales fell by 5.9% for the full year, and by 2.6% in the fourth-quarter.

The business has plans to cut costs and will slow down plans to open local convenience M stores.

Trevor Strain, chief financial officer, said: "We are making good progress on the plan to generate £2bn of cash while making £1bn of cost savings to invest in the business, and are determined to keep lowering prices and keep them consistently low for our customers."