Morrisons has sold its 10% stake in Fresh Direct back to the online US grocer for £45m.
The price marks a £13m gain for Morrisons, which completed the original deal in March 2011 for £32m.
Morrisons, took the stake at a time when it was exploring its options in terms of developing its own online grocery offer. The month before it forked out £70m for UK-based online baby goods seller Kiddicare.
The then Morrisons CEO Dalton Philips joined the board of Fresh Direct, which operates in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Morisons also embedded a team in Fresh Direct’s Long Island City HQ to learn about its e-commerce model.
In the end however Morrisons decided against developing its own online grocery platform from scratch and instead agreed a £216m deal for Ocado to run its online grocery operations in May 2013.
It was the time spent in the US which convinced Morrisons to partner with Ocado and when it launched in December of that year, its offer included features that it had picked up from Fresh Direct, such as a star rating for the quality of fresh produce that would be delivered and a door step check in which shoppers could decide the quality of fresh produce was acceptable or not and if not they would receive a refund.
Morrisons said in 2014 that it would dispose of its interest in Fresh Direct at an appropriate time. The deal marks a better return than it got for Kiddicare which it sold to turnaround specialists Endless for just £2m in July 2014.
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