Morrisons’ losses have grown to nearly £1bn despite an improvement in sales.
The Bradford supermarket blamed unexpected “headwinds” to the tune of £200m in costs from Rachel Reeves’ autumn 2024 budget, and the impact from a cyberattack that crippled its supply chain in the run-up to Christmas 2024.
Morrisons’ revenues grew to £15.8bn from £15.4bn in the 52 weeks to 26 October 2025, recently published accounts for its holding company Market Topco show. Like-for-like sales were up 2.8%.
However, underlying EBITDA, which the private equity owned supermarket said was its “key” financial measure, was flat at exactly £835m as a result of the costs incurred due to the increases in National Insurance payments and minimum wage, as well as the cyberattack.
The supermarket‘s one-off costs also increased by £297m. Overall, losses before tax grew to £926m. It reversed a profit of £1.9bn the previous year, during which it was boosted by the £2.6bn sale of its petrol fuel courts business.
“In our 2025 full year we grew like-for-like sales every quarter, maintained EBITDA and our market share, and demonstrated our resilience in the face of some tough external headwinds, from the cyber incident, rising inflation and government cost increases, which we worked hard to offset,” a Morrisons spokesman said.
Morrisons paid £676m in debt, increased lease costs following the sale and buy back of stores as well as debt. This was a reduction in £701m the previous year.
Total debt stood at £3.2bn, a reduction of 46% since the 2021 takeover by Clayton Dublier & Rice, the supermarket said.
“Debt and interest costs were both reduced and the underlying performance of the business was robust, with the company continuing to generate healthy underlying EBITDA and strong operating cashflow.
“Market Topco’s increased headline loss before tax for the year reflects increased exceptional costs, primarily non-cash impairment charges, with a significant factor being the write down in the value of the acquired McColl’s business,” the spokesman added.
The spokesman continued: “Colleague numbers in the year ending October 2025 primarily reflect the impact of the closure of the newspaper home delivery service in convenience, the restructuring of the retail people team and the down-sizing of the Rathbones bakery business. There was no additional redundancy programme in stores, where numbers were only reduced by not replacing those who had chosen to leave.”
No comments yet