A decline in first-half profits at Wm Morrison Supermarkets has been blamed on inflationary pressures and recent “large scale” price-cutting campaigns.
Morrisons said its underlying earnings had fallen by 10.7 per cent to £394 million in the six months to the end of April.
The retailer, which was bought by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the American private equity firm, in a deal worth about £7 billion at the end of 2021, blamed the drop on continued “significant inflationary headwinds” and its £700 million investment programme to lower prices for hard-pressed shoppers.
It is also battling a twin assault from Aldi and Lidl, the German discounters, on one side and from Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, its bigger rivals, on the other. It is
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