Morrisons CEO David Potts is being called on to revive the supermarket giant amid performance decline which has seen it overtaken by Aldi as the fourth largest grocer.
Senior grocery market sources said Potts will need to cut prices and put a stop to its market share declining further or risk being ‘punished’ by the market growth of Aldi and Lidl.
According to This Is Money, one source said: “Its market share is dropping at a frightening rate. The inescapable conclusion is Morrisons’ involvement with private equity has had an all too obvious and unfortunate impact on the business.”
Its market share sat at 9% in August, in comparison with this same time last year, Morrisons had a 10% market share when US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice purchased the Big 4 grocer.
Earlier this month, credit rating agency Moody’s estimated that Morrisons could be hit by £95 million in borrowing costs, seeing its annual interest payments rise from £35 million to £335 million, on top of its current £6.6 billion debt pile.
This comes as Morrisons chief operating officer Trevor Strain stepped down in September.
At the time of the announcement, Strain said: “This has been a very difficult decision for me, but I believe if I am to take on a new challenge for the next few years then it would be better to make that change at the start of the Morrisons journey in private equity, and not in the middle of it.”
