Big investor sells Morrison shares

SUPERMARKETS group Wm Morrison remains unloved. ABN Amro sold £63m shares on behalf of one of the retailer's shareholders yesterday.

This suggests the investor, thought to be M&G or Scottish fund manager Baillie Gifford, has doubts about Sir Ken Morrison's ability to integrate the Safeway acquisition.

The shares fell 4p to 187 1/2p after ABN sold the 33.63m shares at 188p each. The disposal was equivalent to a 1.2% stake in Morrison.

The seller is believed to have offloaded its whole stake, having got jittery following the profits warning from Morrison last Friday.

Sir Ken's niece Susan Pritchard and her husband Nigel sold £9.8m of shares the week before the warning, in a deal that has caught the Financial Services Authority's eye.

Many investors are still keeping their faith in supermarkets supremo Sir Ken, who is convinced that the sales decline at Safeway is a 'blip'.

Last week he bought a further 500,000 shares to demonstrate his belief in the turnaround.

JP Morgan yesterday upgraded its recommendation on Morrison from 'neutral' to 'underweight' because it thinks the risks have already been factored into the share price.