The grocer’s buyout by a US private equity firm in late 2021 was spectacularly badly timed
It was a year of transition, said David Potts, chief executive of Morrisons, referring to the grocer’s £7bn takeover by the US private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice in late 2021. He could equally have meant the other significant change: Morrisons transitioned from fourth largest supermarket chain in the UK before the buyout barons took control, to fifth.
One can see in Thursday’s numbers how it happened. Aldi, the operator on the rise, opened a few stores but the critical contributor was the mighty 4.2% fall in Morrisons’ like-for-like sales last year. That was in a period in which virtually everybody else has been firmly in positive territory thanks to inflationary breezes.
