Morrisons in danger of falling out of FTSE 100 as blue-chip index comes up for renewal
Supermarket Morrisons is in danger relegation from the FTSE 100 list of Britain’s biggest companies as the prestigious blue-chip index comes up for renewal this week.
Morrisons has been hovering near the bottom of the index over the last year and narrowly avoided being kicked out in the last quarterly reshuffles in June and September.
Its share price has fallen by 15 per cent to 154.60p this year, giving the supermarket a market capitalisation of £3.6bn and placing it in 109th position on the London stock market.
Companies face demotion from the index if their value falls below that of the 110th largest company in the rankings. If a company is in the FTSE 250 and climbs into the top 90 companies, it can enter the FTSE 100.
The next quarterly review of the index takes place on Wednesday, with security firm G4S and aerospace firm Meggitt also likely to be demoted. Worldpay, the global payments firm, financial services group Provident Financial, and Irish services firm DCC are poised to take their place.
Morrisons has been grappling with an intensifying price war sparked by the rise of Aldi and Lidl, which are especially numerous in Morrisons northern heartland.
Chief executive David Potts, who replaced Dalton Philips earlier this year, has been steering the company back to recovery by introducing a string of new measures, cutting back head office staff in favour of putting more people on the shop floor.
An exit from the FTSE 100 would also mean that Morrisons is no longer automatically included in tracker funds held by institutional investors.