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Market: LSE
Sector: General Retailers
EPIC: MRW
Latest Price: 289.55p  (-0.69% Descending)
52-week High: 339.70p
52-week Low: 267.30p
Market Cap: 7,307.12M
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Morrisons
www.morrisons.co.uk
Morrisons is one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, offering a range of goods including both branded and own label products.
Full Morrisons profile here
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Morrisons reports 21% increase in underlying profit for FY09/10

11th Mar 2010, 11:52 am Morrisons reports 21% increase in underlying profit for FY09/10

Supermarket chain Morrisons (LSE: MRW) said in its results statement for the year ended 31 January 2010 that it added a further 43 new stores in the period, increased turnover by 6% to £15.4bn and reported underlying profits by 21% to £767m from the previous year.

The group’s overall pre-tax profit was £858m, including an exceptional credit of £91m relating to the company’s pension schemes, compared with £655m in the previous financial year. The underlying profit growth and the 23% EPS (Earnings per share) growth to 20.5p, has led the board to increase the company’s’ total dividend for the year by 41%. Morrisons will recommend a final dividend of 7.1p per share, bringing the total to 8.2p per share. Morrisons said that cash generation was strong during the year, with a £40m increase in cash from operations to £1bn.

"Morrisons had another good year, and we have successfully grown sales and profits to record levels”. Morrisons chairman Sir Ian Gibson said. “The board believes that Morrisons ... will continue to attract customers from our competitors and drive market share growth in the year ahead. For the longer term, we will continue to utilise our balance sheet strength to invest for growth, with new space, new manufacturing capability and new systems priorities in the year ahead”.

Following the development of a new South East regional distribution centre at Sittingbourne and the store expansion programme, capital expenditure increased to £906m compared with £678m in the preceding financial year. Consequently net debt increased to £924m from £642m, although the company said that at 19% gearing is well below average for the sector, and it has undrawn committed bank facilities of £650m. Morrisons also noted that its credit rating was upgraded by Moody's for the second consecutive year, to A3, which it said is a strong investment grade rating held by only 2 other European retailers.

Looking forward into the current financial year, the company expects the economic environment to remain challenging.

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