page_title: Morrisons
section_title: Change of leadership again
hierarchical_section_title: Morrisons / History / Change of leadership again
caption_attribution_description: English: Morrisons HQ, Bradford The administrative headquarters of the national supermarket chain is on Gain Lane, Bradford. Looking northeast from the end of Mortimer Avenue.
context_page_description: Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc, trading as Morrisons, is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, and is headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
  Founded in 1899 by William Morrison, hence the abbreviation Wm Morrison, it began as an egg and butter stall in Rawson Market, Bradford, England. Until 2004, Morrisons store locations were primarily focused in the North of England, but with the takeover of Safeway in that year, the company's presence increased significantly in the South of England, Wales and Scotland. As of 2016 the company had 498 superstores across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar.
  As of April 2019, Morrisons employed 110,000 employees, and served around 11 million customers each week.
  Morrisons' market share in August 2017 was 10.14%, down 0.86% from 2015—behind Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda but ahead of Aldi.
  The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies.
context_section_description: Following a 3.1% drop in like-for-like sales in the Christmas 2014 trading period, Morrisons announced the widely expected resignation of the heavily publicly criticised Chief Executive of five years, Dalton Philips, to become effective in March 2015. In addition the chairman, Sir Ian Gibson, would stand down six months early to be replaced by former Tesco chief financial officer Andrew Higginson at the end of January 2015. Five additional executives left the company in March 2015.
  Morrisons also announced the closure of 10 small loss-making stores (eight former Netto UK stores and two former Somerfield stores, bought under Philips's leadership) in Cramlington, Accrington, Ravensthorpe, Bransholme (Hull), Telford, West Bromwich, Wallasey (Seacombe—store pictured on the right), Newton le Willows, Rugby and Crawley. In addition, six unprofitable convenience stores would close, and the roll-out of the convenience store chain would be slowed, as a batch of 40 sites would no longer be bought.
  On 25 February 2015, Morrisons named former Tesco director David Potts as its new chief executive.
  In June 2015, Morrisons cut the price of 200 'everyday items' by up to 33% The store chain's like-for-like sales had fallen by 2.9% in the first three months of 2015—after falling 2.6% in the last three months of 2014. The company responded by deciding to 'simplify' its head office in Bradford—at the cost of 720 jobs.
  In September 2015, Morrisons announced the sale of its 140 M Local stores to Mike Greene and Greybull Capital, to be re-branded My Local, for £25 million and that it planned to close 11 supermarkets, costing a reported 900 jobs. Following on from this in January 2016 Morrisons bosses announced that a further 7 stores would be closing to help optimise their existing assets and address areas of underperformance.
  From March 2020, Morrisons will cut down 3,000 management roles and create 7,000 shop floor jobs as part of its restructuring plan.
caption: Morrisons' headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire
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