And not only seen the future but stolen a march on its competitors by seizing it. Two announcements today could change the future of retailing and give Morrisons a big step up over the competition.
Firstly it will provide a whole supply service to Amazon with hundreds of Morrisons (MRW) products becoming available online on Amazon including both fresh and fozen products. Could this give it a big leap in sales without it having to open a single new store or spend massively on increasing its on line presence.
At the same time MRW has reached agreement in principal with Ocado which, if implemented, will give it space in Ocado’s grandly named Customer Fulfillment Centre at Erith thereby enabling morrison.com to sell to customers all over Great Britain without having to build its own massive distribution and delivery network, by joining together Ocado’s delivery capability with Morrisons store assets.
Over the past 3 months months, shares in Morrisons have leapt from 145p to 195p compared to their 2013 high of 300p.
Chamberlin (CMH) the specialist castings & engineering group, is making good progress in difficult conditions and announces that underlying profit before tax should be above current market expectations for the current year, showing that it has the ability to deliver a world class product at a competitive price. All this, despite a slowdown in its core markets including steel, oil and gas, giving the lie to those who claim that the UK has no industry left.
In addition it has signed a major new automotive contract worth 3.3 million per year, with the benefits starting to flow as from the second half of 2017 and a new milling facility which will commence operation early in 2017 will make the group the only fully integrated supplier in Europe of grey iron bearing housings.
Results will be announced towards the end of May, together with a further update. The shares have fallen from 92p a year ago to their current 64p.