Andrew Pinnington

https://lnkd.in/eQtrTMMK Very interesting article from Eddie Devlin from The Grocer reporting on the level of M&A activity with a specific focus on Food and Drink. The data for this report coming from Oghma Partners. Given the general noise surrounding 'dry powder' waiting to be deployed from the investment world, It was interesting to see that corporate firms have really been taking the opportunity to buy and build through acquisitive actions with M&A activity hitting an eight-year high! Corporate buyers up a massive 79.1% with PE only making up 9.3% of volume. This bias perhaps accounting for the lesser cumulative value of the deals. In my professional capacity focused on leadership effectiveness and operational efficiency I see a growing need for corporates who are acquiring firms to consider at what point do they look to assess synergies of scale and the relative merits of integration of operations, people and resources. Often an after thought for many businesses and arguably one of the biggest reasons/factors as to why acquired companies struggle to deliver upon the strategic intention that drove the acquisition decision in the first place. With easing inflationary pressure, and a hopeful fall in interest rates, then the forecast for the year ahead does look more favourable certainly for PE firms who have been more cautious in terms of deal volumes. One question that does spring to mind beyond the consideration around integration surrounds whether or not the PE firms run the risk of holding on for too long and loose the opportunity to acquire some very interesting brands/businesses to the corporates. Will they have as many attractive options to consider or will their focus be on undervalued or distressed purchases? #privateequity #dealflow #mergersandacquisitions #foodanddrink #fmcg #fastmovingconsumergoods

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Sales Momentum Building At Morrisons After Progress With Recovery Plan Morrisons has delivered another “solid quarter of progress” as new CEO Rami Baitiéh implements his recovery plan, which has focused on improving the chain’s product availability, loyalty scheme, and price competitiveness. In its second quarter to 28 April, group’s like-for-like sales up 4.1%, total sales up 3.7% to £3.8bn.,underlying EBITDA H1 as a whole up 16% to £321m. Morrisons also revealed the group’s debt down by 35% to £4.0bn from £6.2bn after acquisition by PE firm CD&R. The group completed £2.5bn sale of its petrol station business to MFG, and bought 38 Channel Islands convenience stores from SandpiperCI. McColl’s conversion programme concluded, now targeting 2,000 Morrisons Daily convenience stores in 2025, up from 1,600. “I am pleased with the overall performance of the business in the second quarter with supermarkets, convenience, wholesale and online all delivering growth,” said Baitiéh. “Over the last eight months, we have listened carefully to over 340,000 customers, colleagues and suppliers, and the insights from this exercise are helping to refine and shape the activity in all three pillars of our strategy: commercial excellence, operations optimisation and new value creation. It’s clear that availability and our loyalty scheme are the two areas our customers talk about the most and so we are focusing intensively on these areas.” Baitiéh noted that its Aldi and Lidl Price Match scheme introduced in February had given shoppers increasing confidence in the chain’s competitiveness. He also revealed that the investment made in its More Card loyalty scheme had been “very positive”, with over five million active members and transactions using the card growing by around 35% in the last eight months. Morrisons is now aiming for 70% of transactions to go through its More Card over the medium term, up from the current 50%. Chief Financial Officer Jo Goff concluded: “This has been another solid quarter of progress with sales and volume improvements right across the business. Our debt has now reduced by over a third, and we made further progress on our cost savings programme with £78m delivered in the quarter, taking the total since the start of this year to just over £450m, in line with our £700m three year target.” Currently celebrating 125 years since Sir Ken Morrison’s father established the first Morrisons store. Despite sales improvement in 12 months, Morrisons’ market share slipped from 8.8% to 8.7% over the year to 9 June 2024 [Kantar]. NamNews Implications: * Improvements patently taking place in terms of - product availability, - loyalty scheme - price competitiveness. - Debt reduction of 33% - EBITDA up 16% * i.e. key improvements for a PE financed company * Key that it soon results in growth of market share… * Watch this space! #Morrisons #GroceryMarketShare

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Today Kingfisher plc released our latest financial results.   Our half year trading reflects a strong performance with Screwfix total sales up 4.5%/1.2% on a LFL basis, reflecting a high demand from our busy trade customers.   Here’s what we have been up to: • We’ve expanded our leading service, Screwfix Sprint to an additional 100 stores, bringing the total to 454 • We opened 16 new stores, including two of our ultra-compact Screwfix City stores • We are on track to open 40 new stores this financial year across the UK and ROI • Further progressing our international plans, with 25 stores now open in France • Continuing to refine our Screwfix.eu proposition – operating in 6 European countries • Screwfix Connect continues to perform in line with expectations • We launched our ‘Voice of the Trade Report’ to highlight what tradespeople are calling on from the new Government • 130 colleagues have completed an apprenticeship programme • We have doubled our refurbishment operation this year, allowing us to refurbish even more products including electrical and water products   I’m proud of what our teams have achieved so far this year and I would like to say a huge thank you to Screwfix and Kingfisher plc colleagues for your continued hard work.   Read the full results statement via the link in the comments #Screwfix #Kingfisher #KingfisherResults #Colleagues #Customers

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