Member Info for Jimbo1122

It has been reported that Amazon are mulling over making a takeover bid for Ocado. I personally don't think it will happen because the current tie up Ocado have with Waitrose and Morrisons will cause all sorts of legal complications. Why don't Amazon takeover MRW instead and they will have access to the home delivery agreement already in place along with a Nationwide food retailer that has stores that can easily be adapted to incorporate Amazon's products and services. The £4.5 Billion tag would be loose change to a company of Amazon's stature.

Assuming that Tesco have not included "future sales" in their figures then a 1.3% increase over the Christmas period is a very credible performance. This could be a sign that consumers are starting to tire of the basic fare on offer from the discounters. I think when the markets open this morning it will only be the supermarket sector that will perform relatively well. MRW Sp will hopefully rise on the back of the Tesco results posted.

MRW are starting to get things back on track. Sales holding up against intense competition and balance sheet is very healthy. No more reckless spending and the company has been working hard to reduce costs. I don't think that the expansion of Aldi and Lidl will affect MRW as much as the other food retailers because most new stores will be opened in the South where MRW do not have a particularly strong presence. I think the City will react very favourably to the results posted so hopefully the shares will have a good day today and climb steadily thereafter.

Opium--I don't have any particular axe to grind with Tesco , in fact, I recently purchased a Blaupunkt 32" HD TV from Tesco online and it was delivered(foc) next working day for a grand total of £99.00--how on earth do they make money on that ? I also have a lump sum invested with Tesco bank (5 year fixed) and they are paying me 2.95% interest --good old Tesco. The company itself is in dire financial difficulties which is good for all the other major food retailers because Tesco is in no position to start a price war--thank god for that. We all know about the main part of the business but the subsidiaries are also dragging it down --here are some facts for you to digest . Giraffe Coffee--Loss in 2014 (£0.1M) has increased to a loss of £4M, Dunnhumby was thought by Tesco to be worth £2B when it was put up for sale--pulled when the highest bid received was £600M (Debts have risen to £96m from £15M, One stop Stores Profit has halved from £20m to £10m over the last year, Nutricentre £2.2M Loss has increased to £8.3M. MRW does not have all these issues to address and actually have a very healthy balance sheet to get them through these turbulent times. I know whose shares I would much rather have over the long medium to long term. Just one final point--the scrapping of the match and more price match does not seem to have affected footfall one bit and of course it will lead to higher margins. The city I think have finally cottoned on to that.

Tesco shares are now trading at under £1.40. I remember an analyst worked out that Tesco shares are worth £0.03 each if you factored everything in ie assets v debts and obligations (pensions etc).

Morrisons have donated £100,000 to a charity to assist families affected by the floods in the North. The board of directors deserve great praise for their very kind gesture and hopefully many more large corporations will respond just as generously.

I should add that i'm talking about the last 7 days and not over the full year. I particularly like the way the store has positioned the special offers at the main entrance to the store so that when customers come in it's the first thing they see--MRW literally sell pallet loads of these items every day. Someone with an entrepreneurial spark is finally working at MRW.

I appreciate that it's only one store out of 500 across the UK but the sales in the store my wife works in is consistently up by between 5% and 8% (daily)over the same period last year. If this is replicated across the UK then i think we can look forward to a very healthy Christmas statement. The TV ads are a vast improvement over last year's and obviously doing the trick.

Hi Jack Thank you for explaining the high volume trade. It seems a tad complicated but I'm a bit less ignorant now than i was on Friday. Happy that the shares have had a good day (so far) and hope it continues on an upward trend for quite some time. If i don't post again this side of Christmas i hope that you and all the other regular posters have a very merry Christmas.

I was wondering if the exceptionally high Uncrossing trade (£40.7 Million) on Friday is just a shorter buying back shares or does it have any other significance ?

Opium --what a truly bizarre statement you have just made. You hold no MRW shares and yet you continually post your opinions on MRW. No doubt you will keep giving us the benefit of your wisdom while the share price continues to rise and it will never occur to you to capitalise on it. You've done it twice before and you have obviously not learned a thing.

Kantar have just released data for the twelve weeks up to dec 5th. Overall grocery sales up by 0.1% but asda and tesco are struggling quite badly with sales declines of 3.7%. Sainsbury sales increased by 1.2%. Morrisons sales declined by 2% but that was almost solely due to having sold the convenience stores. The market has responded very positively with MRW Sp about 6p higher at the time of writing this post. I think that MRW are going to have good Christmas sales as my wife tells me that her store is extremely busy.

This group action claim is a load of codswallop. My wife works at MRW and never in a million years would she consider suing MRW because of the actions of a single prat with a grievance. It has cost Morrisons millions to rectify the situation and that included a years free subscription to Experian for all employees and they also made sure that all employees were advised in writing of how best to protect themselves against the threat of fraud. I suspect the vast majority of the individuals involved in the group action are ex employees and i'm sorry to say this but also a bunch of chancers (with the exception of a very small number who may have actually been victims of fraud ). Morrisons did all they could reasonably be expected to do and i fail to see how any court will decide otherwise.

Thank you Bertram for your post that certainly lifted my mood especially when all you seem to get nowadays is a constant stream of pessimism surrounding MRW. The losses i have made are paper losses and therefore they only become a loss if i decide to sell at less than the price i bought them for and since i have no intention of selling at this stage i will simply think of it as money in a long term bond that continues to pay interest twice a year (Dividends). The company does have a healthy balance sheet and is still profitable and with forecasts to increase profit this year and next. The company is becoming more efficient and there will be no more expensive follies that blighted Dalton Philips tenure. The share price should improve gradually when sales and profits increase or dramatically if someone decides to merge or takeover the company. For now its simply a case of holding and waiting.

Thank you Fruitster for taking the time to answer my query and it all made perfect sense. I just hope that MRW get things back on track pretty quickly. If i worked in the City i would have found myself walking out with my cardboard box full of personal effects some time ago based on my not so brilliant handling of my MRW holding alone. The strange thing is that these shares could rocket overnight given the merest whiff of a takeover then i will feel like a tactical genius for holding on to the shares--you just never know.

I just have a basic knowledge of how things work in the world of finance so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten me. Lets say someone was interested in taking over MRW would they now be in a much more advantageous position in that a large number of shares will now be available to be snapped up at a very low price. It seems to me that it would be a great starting point in which to build up a sizeable stake in the company. I have noticed that the share price went up this morning but i suspect that will be down to the suggestion that MRW will now sell off its manufacturing division.

I think it is now a given that MRW will drop out of the FTSE 100 but Fruitster and others are absolutely right, it doesn't make any difference to MRW as a company and the way it's run. Both my wife and son work at a Morrisons in Scotland and they both are saying the store is significantly busier than before which is obviously a good sign. Hardly reported was the fact that MRW was the only one of the big four to see an increase in sales over the last twelve weeks. I think the Christmas advertising is much better this time around because it's hammering home to the general public all the positives that seperate MRW from the rest. Maybe i'm biased but how can anybody honestly think that a company that has it's own greengrocers, fishmongers, butchers, bakers on site is not a cut above the discounters on service and quality. I do think that MRW are going to have a good Christmas and because they are no longer committed to matching the discounters, a much more profitable one.

Surely there must be better bets for shorting than constantly picking on MRW. To my mind they are playing a very dangerous game because the slightest whiff of a takeover will send the share price soaring overnight and MRW is ripe for a takeover. The other thing i don't understand is how they reckon a company where the share price is now almost exactly the same as the asset value of the company can go much lower than it is at the moment. Recently the share price has twice bounced from lows of £1.50 to around £1.75 in a very short period. Let's not forget that MRW is still making profits and has a very healthy balance sheet.

Mike Greene is not immune to making errors himself --to my knowledge i don't think David Potts has ever been declared Bankrupt. MRW were always going to struggle with making a profit on the convenience stores because they are too restrained in the way they go about buying and selling goods. They have a certain standard that needs to be adhered to and that is extremely costly to maintain. Smaller independent retailers do not have this burden and can basically explore avenues simply not an option to the big four retailers. Mike Greene will not be able to believe his luck by purchasing "hit the ground running" convenience stores (fully fitted out and with trained staff) for the same price Dalton paid for empty shell blockbuster stores. MRW could have and should have negioated a better deal --eg why did they agree to be liable for any failures and why didn't they try and strike a own brand supply deal for the shops ??? I am really starting to get frustrated with the way things are going and if the share price drops any more i may even consider popping into Nationwide Building Society to see if they will entertain my interest in launching a takeover bid before someone gives Christo Weiss a good hard nudge.

Hallelujah, no more dancing gingerbread men being flicked on the backside by overpaid Geordies. Instead it's real everyday Morrisons workers starring in the Christmas advertising campaign. Morrisons will show how produce is delivered straight from the farm to the store and how the "instore" bakers, butchers, grocers and fishmongers make and prepare the Food that will end up on the Christmas table. This is exactly the message Morrisons should have been putting across for years and failed to do so. Done correctly this will make Aldi and Lidl seem very inferior by comparison. I hope the ads will end with the fact that Morrisons were the cheapest place to shop outwith the discounters in a recent independent survey.