Morrisons has continued the momentum developed in the latter stages of last year, with sales growth across the business, growth in EBITDA and positive free cash flow.
Group revenue for the fiscal 2023, excluding fuel, was up 2.7 per cent to £14.9bn and group like-for-like (LFL) sales, excluding fuel, were up 3.3 per cent for Q4 and 1.8 per cent for the year, representing six consecutive quarters of LFL improvement.
Retail sales, which includes supermarkets, online and convenience (from Q3 onwards), contributed 2.9 per cent in the quarter. Within that, online grew 1.6 per cent and convenience, which includes McColl’s, grew by 9 per cent. Wholesale contributed a further 0.4 per cent with double-digit wholesale LFL growth maintained throughout the year.
A further 190 McColl’s stores has been converted in Q4, and with an additional 131 in Q1 this year, over 800 stores are now trading as Morrisons Daily. The company said the stores have seen LFL uplifts on conversion of around 20 per cent with growth continuing into second year.
Underlying EBITDA was £970m, up by 6.5 per cent from £911m last year.
“I have been at Morrisons for only a few months, but it’s already clear that we have an abundance of talented colleagues, well located shops, high class food making operations and a real point of difference with our Market Street butchers, fishmongers, bakers, cheesemongers and deli counters,” Rami Baitiéh, who took charge as chief executive in November 2023, said.
“We’re competitive online, our convenience and wholesale operations are growing fast and I have seen the affection and goodwill that our customers, supplier partners and farmers have for Morrisons.
Jo Goff, chief financial officer, added: “This has been a year of steady progress as we continued to invest in price, customer service, loyalty and made further improvements in our own brand range and in quality.
“We’ve made good progress on our working capital improvement process with a further £100 million in Q4, taking the total for the year to £300 million, more than half the £500 million multi-year target and ahead of our expectations.”
