Chief Executive David Potts, Calls the halving of Morrisons profits a `badge of honour' during the Covid Pandemic

Morrisons, the British supermarket group announced a halving of its annual profits due to the immense costs incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic was a "badge of honour" as the priority has been feeding the nation in 2020-2021. Chief Executive David Potts told reporters, "I wear a halving of profits as a badge of honor."  Morrisons is Britain's fourth-largest grocer after Tesco, Sainsbury, and Asda, whose like-for-like sales rose by over 8.6% but still incurred direct pandemic costs of 290 million pounds. 

This is reflective of the costs incurred in hiring thousands of workers, staff sick pay, and in-store measures put in place to deal with the pandemic. The British Supermarket also lost revenue from in-store cafes which were forced to shut down. On Thursday, 11th of March, the group made a profit before tax and exceptional items of £201 million ($280 million) in the year to January 31. This was before business rates payments of £230 million down from 408 million pounds in 2019-2020. 

Mr.Potts said, "The British people have had access to food because the supermarket workers, not just Morrisons, were asked by the government to be key workers and required to stay open, unlike pretty much the rest of society. Frankly, we could have made no profit and it would have been a result." The 2021/22 forecast profit before tax and exceptional include business rates paid to be higher than the 431 million pounds profits achieved in 2020/2022 which excludes waived rates relief. Morrisons so predicting a solid free cash flow and a considerable compression in net debt. 

Last week Morrisons shares were relegated from the FTSE 100 index of top UK firms and were down 0.8% at 0918GMT, valuing the business at £4.2 billion. Morrisons intends to explore a relationship with Amazon. 'Morrison's on Amazon service is currently available in about 50 towns and cities. This accounts for more than 10% of sales at all the major stores where the service is offered. There has been an ongoing presumption that Amazon would rise as a likely bidder. Mr.Potts said, "We don't ever comment on matters related to mergers and acquisitions."