History

Founding

The company was founded by William Morrison in 1899 who started the business as an egg and butter merchant in Rawson Market, Bradford, England, operating under the name of Wm Morrison Limited.^[11]
His son Ken Morrison took over the company in 1952, aged 21. In 1958, Morrisons opened a small shop in the city centre.^[11] It was the first self-service store in Bradford, the first store to have prices on its products, and it had three checkouts. The company opened its first supermarket, "Victoria", in the Girlington district of Bradford in 1961.^[11]
In 1967, Morrisons became a public limited company listed on the London Stock Exchange.^[11]

Acquisition of Safeway

Morrisons supermarket in Milton Keynes (formerly a Safeway store)

In March 2004 Morrisons, acquired Safeway, a British supermarket chain which owned 479 stores, allowing Morrisons to have a larger presence in southern England.^[12] The company was purchased for £3.3 billion, comprising 1 new Morrisons share (enabling Safeway shareholders to have a 40% stake in the enlarged group and reducing the Morrison family's shareholding to 18%), plus 60 pence in cash (paid for by the divestment of 52 overlapping stores) for each Safeway share held. The acquisition quickly ran into difficulties caused in part by Safeway UK's outgoing management changing that chain's accounting systems six weeks before the transaction was completed.^[13] The result was a series of profit warnings being issued by Morrisons, poor financial results^[14] and a reversion to manual systems.^[15]
The programme of store conversions from Safeway to Morrisons was the largest of its kind in British retail history, focusing initially on the retained stores which were freehold, over 25,000 sq ft (2,300 m²) with separate car parks. Within a few weeks, Safeway carrier bags were replaced by those of Morrisons and Morrisons own-brand products began to appear in Safeway stores.^[16]
Originally 52 shops were to be compulsorily divested after the takeover, but this was reduced to 50 after one Safeway store in Sunderland was destroyed by fire and the lease ended on another in Leeds city centre. John Lewis Partnership purchased 19 to be part of its Waitrose chain,^[17] while J Sainsbury plc purchased a further 14,^[18] and Tesco bought 10 in October 2004.^[19] At the time Morrisons chose not to move into the convenience store sector (although it has since done so with its M Local stores). Further to this policy decision, it was announced in late 2004 that the 114 smaller 'Safeway Compact' stores would be sold off to rival supermarket chain Somerfield in a two-part deal worth £260.2 million in total.^[20]
In Northern Ireland Morrisons sold the Safeway stores to Asda. This included a store in Bangor that opened after the Morrisons takeover.^[21]
One of the largest single purchases in 2005 was that of five stores by Waitrose.^[22] On 18 July 2006, a further six stores from the 'Rump' format were sold to Waitrose, including the former Safeway store in Hexham, Northumberland, which became England's most northerly Waitrose branch.^[23]
In May 2005, Morrisons announced the closure of Safeway's joint venture convenience store/petrol station format with BP. Under the deal, the premises had been split 50/50 between the two companies.^[24]
Morrisons also sold Safeway's Channel Islands stores, in Guernsey and Jersey, to CI Traders where the stores continued to trade as Safeway, although the products they sold carried the brand names of chains such as Iceland.^[25] In 2011, Sandpiper CI/CI Traders sold the Channel Island Safeway stores to Waitrose and the Safeway brand disappeared from the Channel Islands.^[26] On the Isle of Man, the Douglas store was sold to Shoprite and the Ramsey store was sold to The Co-operative Food.^[27] The Gibraltar store was originally marketed for sale, but has now been converted under the 'Rump' format. In November 2006, plans were submitted for the extension and redevelopment of the store in order to introduce the full Morrisons format.^[28]
In September 2005 the company announced the closure of former Safeway depots in Kent, Bristol and Warrington with the loss of 2,500 jobs.^[29] The Kent depot has since been sold to upmarket rival Waitrose, whilst Warrington was sold to frozen food rival Iceland. Part of the Bristol depot has been sold off to Gist.^[30] The store conversion process was completed on 24 November 2005 when the Safeway fascia disappeared from the UK.^[31]