THE markets showed their disappointment at Morrisons’ latest trading figures yesterday, as the supermarket group’s share price dropped 5%.
Its 2015 peak of 215p, in early March, valued the company at £5bn but that fell by more than one-fifth over a six-month period and is now below £4bn. Shares closed last night at 168p.
Yesterday the Bradford-based group, which is battling against the effects of poor decisions by the previous management and the intense competition across the sector, announced like-for-like sales excluding fuel were down 2.6% in the third quarter.
Although the reduction in its use of vouchers had a significant impact on its top-line performance, the markets remained unimpressed as they searched for signs of sustained improvement.
Retail analysts also delivered a harsh judgement on their expectations for Morrisons to turn around its declining sales.
Phil Dorrell, partner at retail consultants Retail Remedy, said: “If Morrisons is to make up for its first half shortfall, it will need to pull out all the stops in Q4 because Q3 was another quarter of lacklustre sales.
“We have seen nothing yet to understand how they are going to drive more footfall into their stores in this most important of all quarters.”
