Supermarket reports first loss in its history
Supermarket chain Morrisons has reported its first annual losses in the company's history. The losses, of£312.9 million, were blamed on the cost of converting the final 160 Safeway stores to the Morrisons fascia.

Pre-tax profit, after the Safeway conversion costs were written off, was down from£332.3 million to£61.5 million.

Like-for-like sales at core Morrisons stores were down by 3.4 per cent, with customer spending down 1.6 per cent. However, like-for-like sales in converted stores rose by 8.9 per cent.

Chairman Sir Ken Morrison said the results were 'the outcome of an extremely challenging year'. He added: 'However, through this period of great change we have built strong foundations for the company's future as a national retailer. I am confident that the [optimisation] plan will deliver significant improvements in performance.'

Morrisons said that the integration process was now complete. It bought rival Safeway in 2004. A total of 220 Safeway stores have been converted, at a cost of£623.4 million.

The company today launched a three-year optimisation plan designed to enable the company to successfully apply the original Morrisons model to its present larger business.

The group's like-for-like sales for the seven weeks ending March 19 were up 3.2 per cent, excluding fuel.

Morrisons is the UK's fourth largest supermarket, with an 11.8 per cent share of the grocery market and a turnover of£12.9 billion.

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