UK supermarket Morrisons says performance improving under new boss

Rami Baitieh joined as CEO in November

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Q1 underlying sales up 4.6%

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Key customer metrics improving

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Industry data shows firm losing market share

LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - British supermarket group Morrisons reported a seventh straight quarter of underlying sales growth and said its overall performance was improving under new CEO Rami Baitieh.

The group owned by U.S. private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice since 2021 said like-for-like sales excluding fuel and VAT sales tax rose 4.6% in its fiscal first quarter to Jan. 28 - its strongest quarterly growth for three years.

Total revenue, excluding fuel, increased 3.9% to 3.9 billion pounds ($4.92 billion).

Former Carrefour France boss Baitieh became Morrisons CEO in November.

“Across the business we have identified many areas where we can raise our game and make small improvements which collectively will result in a significantly enhanced shopping experience for our customers," he said, noting better product availability and innovation and reduced waste had already been achieved.

"Our key customer metrics are improving and complaints – which in many ways are the canaries in the retail coalmine – are down almost 60% in the last 20 weeks," he said.

However, industry data published on Tuesday showed Morrisons continuing to lose market share to rivals including industry leader Tesco and No. 2 Sainsbury's, as well as discounters Aldi and Lidl.

The data from researcher Kantar showed Morrisons had a UK market share of 8.7% in the 12 weeks to March 7, down 10 basis points on the year.

Morrisons ended its 2022-23 financial year with debt of about 5.5 billion pounds. Interest payments for the debt have hindered the group's ability to compete.

Last month the group followed its bigger rivals in matching prices of the discounters on hundreds of comparable products and in January it sold its petrol station business.

Morrisons differs from its main rivals in that it also has its own production operations and makes half of the fresh food it sells.

Looking to longer-term growth, Baitieh said new plans had been developed for wholesale, convenience, franchise, export markets and global sourcing.