Morrisons boss hands back £600,000 in bonuses

The chief executive of Morrisons has waived over a third of his bonus despite the ‘Big Four’ Grocer reporting its third consecutive year of growth in both sales and profits.

David Potts has given up £598,000 in bonuses of a potential maximum of £1.7m. The company’s annual report reveals that Potts and financial chief Trevor strain both waived their personal entitlement after “taking into consideration the overall performance, such as the lower increase in incremental profit from wholesale, services, interest and online”.

The news comes after it was announced in March that the supermarket’s revenues increased to £17.7bn up from £17.3bn and its underlying profits for the year rose 8.6% to £406m. However lower profits from property sales and other exceptional items totalling £86m meant overall profits were down nearly 16% to £320m.

At the time of the announcement Potts said: “A third consecutive year of strong sales and profit growth, and a total annual dividend up over 150% during those three years, show the Morrisons turnaround is well on track.

“This turnaround is based on improving the shopping trip for customers, making Morrisons
more popular and accessible. And our customers are noticing. Most pleasing of all was another big increase in customer satisfaction, now up a full 20 percentage points in the last four years, which is all down to the friendliness and expertise of our team of unique food makers and shopkeepers.”

Strain has given up £437,000 of his £1.3m bonus meaning he received a total pay of £3.2m, while Potts will take home £4.6m down from £5.9m last year.