Morrisons share price: Grocer to unveil post-referendum price cuts

Wm Morrison Supermarkets (LON:MRW) is to provide a post-referendum boost to shoppers by cutting the price of more than 1,000 products, the Guardian has revealed. The move comes as the blue-chip grocer looks to regain market share in the supermarket war with customers having turned to German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Morrisons’ share price rose on Friday, closing 0.81 percent higher at 185.80p, outperforming the blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed little changed on Friday, adding 3.37 points to end the session 0.05 percent higher at 6,724.43. The group’s shares have gained nearly two percent over the past year, and are up by some 25 percent in the year-to-date.
The Guardian reported this morning that Morrisons was set to cut prices of more than 1,000 products by an average of 18 percent. The newspaper noted that the fact that the reductions were being introduced after the Brexit vote was significant, with analysts saying that the referendum result could lead to inflation in supermarket prices.

“We are constantly listening to our customers and know they are concerned about whether food prices will go up following the Brexit vote, especially on imports,” Andy Atkinson, Morrisons’ customer and marketing director, told the Guardian. “We are British farming’s biggest supermarket customer, which means we can better control our prices, and this latest round of crunches demonstrates our commitment to offering the best possible value to our customers this summer.”
The move comes after the latest Kantar Worldpanel data showed that Morrisons’ sales had slipped by 1.8 percent in the 12 weeks ended July 17, marking the grocer’s best result since January. Kantar noted that the figures still reflected Morrisons’ wave of store disposals last year, adding that their impact on the grocer’s performance should start to lessen in the next few months.
As of 08:05 BST, Monday, 01 August, Wm. Morrison Supermarkets plc share price is 185.80p.