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The scale of the task facing new Morrisons CEO David Potts when he sits at his desk for the first time on Monday was laid bare this morning after the supermarket posted a near £800m loss last year.

Morrisons’ loss before tax ballooned out from £176m in 2013/14 to £792m last year as turnover fell by 4.9% to £16.8bn and like-for-like sales (excluding fuel) were down 5.9%.

The pre-tax loss includes a £1.3bn writedown on its property portfolio, “primarily due to market conditions”.

The poor trading figures were not unexpected, with its underlying profit before tax(down 52% to £345m), around the mid-point of the guidance range set in March 2014.

What may be more concern to investors this morning is the gloomy forward looking guidance, with chairman Andrew Higginson warning: “Last year’s trading environment was tough, and we don’t expect any change this year.”

However, he also said: “ Morrisons is a strong, distinctive business - we own most of our supermarkets, have strong cash flow, and are famous with customers for great quality fresh food at low prices. This gives us a good platform.

“Success measures will be simple - more customers buying more from us. More customers means more volume growth which, ultimately, will lead to better like-for-like, profitability and shareholder returns.”

Former CEO Dalton Philips ultimately failed to achieve this “simple” measure of success and paid with his job in February. Investors will hope that, like Tesco under Dave Lewis, the worst it out of the way and Potts starts with a clean slate to enable a recovery to begin.

Morning update

Morrisons has slipped by 2.3% to 200p in early trading as the City absorbed the scale of Morrisons’ loss (thanks to its property writedowns) and the downbeat outlook. The shares had been at their highest level since May 2014.

Away from Morrisons, Russian supermarket chain Lenta has announced it saw total annual sales growth 34.5% to R194bn and EBITDA rise by almost 30% to R21.4bn. Like-for-like sales growth was 10.6% for the 2014 year.

Also, Eastern European drinks firm Stock Spirits Group has reported a sharp drop in annual revenues to €292.7m from €340.5m last year as revenues were hit by the imposition of a 15% excise duty in Poland.

Elsewhere, Argos and Homebase owner Home Retail Group has had a weaker than expected start to the year, with sales at Argos falling 4% in the eight weeks to 28 February. Online retailer ASOS has reported a 19% quarterly rise in sales to £290.1m also in the three months to 28 February.

Yesterday in the City

Greggs (GRG) broke back through the £10 barrier yesterday after having slipped slightly in the past few days. The high street baker’s shares were up 4.8% to 1,013p at the close of play.

Wholesaler Booker (BOK) also had a good day, with its stock rising 3.3% to 159.8p.

Thorntons (THT) has continued its up-down trajectory as shares recovered 2.8% yesterday to finish back at 73p.

Online grocer Ocado (OCDO) followed on from yesterday’s gains on the back of positive Q1 figures with another jump of 1.2% to 380.4p. And partner Morrisons (MRW) rose 0.7% to 206.5p ahead of this morning’s final results.

At the opposite end of the table Irish banana importer Fyffes (FFY) continued its decline, falling another 3.4% to 84.5p, and Premier Foods (PFD) also dropped back by 3.2% to 37.8p

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