finance comment damianreece 8374933 ----- # Morrisons tie-up could be one in the eye for Ocado's embattled bosses ## Dalton Philips has wasted no time in pushing Morrisons in a variety of new directions. ![Morrisons tie-up could be one in the eye for Ocado's embattled bosses][1] Dalton Philips, Morrisons chief executive Photo: PA [![Damian Reece][2]][3] By [Damian Reece][4], Head of Business 6:00AM GMT 11 Mar 2011 [Comments][5] The chief executive of the Bradford-based grocer is injecting a streak of dynamism into the shopping aisles which his predecessor, Marc Bolland, is struggling to conjure up in his new job at Marks & Spencer. I'm sure Bolland doesn't regret for a moment switching jobs, but Philips is making it evident there was plenty of opportunity to go for at the grocer - opportunities he's making look more straightforward to execute than pulling the often obstinate M&S tanker round. That said, Morrisons is easily the larger business, with a market value of £7.4bn against M&S's £5.5bn. Maybe it's the mid-Atlantic bouncy management-speak that is baffling brains, but Philips gives the impression that Morrisons was full of low hanging strategic fruit when he arrived a year ago that he's happily picking off, slightly surprised it was all there to go for. Anyway, their relative progress will be interesting to watch. A decent set of full-year results from Morrisons, including a 17pc rise in dividend and a 12pc rise in earnings, was overshadowed by a £1bn cashback to shareholders which itself was forced into the background by more detail of Philips' growth plans. ## Related Articles * [Morrisons to start selling food online, from Bradford via US][6] 11 Mar 2011 * [Wm Morrison ends 'solid' year with 1bn buyback][7] 11 Mar 2011 * [FreshDirect: New York's friendly grocer][8] 11 Mar 2011 He committed to opening an extra 1m sq ft of selling space by January 2014 on top of his original plan of 1.5m sq ft by January 2013. Trials of three M local convenience stores will commence this year and he's already announced a £70m investment online through the acquisition of kiddicare.com. This gets Morrisons into e-commerce and non-food in one go. When that deal was announced last month, however, it seemed only one half of the equation to me. _"The next step should be the acquisition of kiddicare's food equivalent so that too can be scaled up through integration with the Morrisons store network. Assuming Philips wants to keep his job that won't be Ocado, but something more modest (and viable) would fit the bill," _was my analysis at the time. Well, we got the answer yesterday with Philips unveiling a £32m investment in FreshDirect, the US online grocer. As with kiddicare, this brings more access to people with expertise in profitable online retailing at an acceptable price. As a footnote to my ramblings on this topic above, the chief executive of FreshDirect, Richard Braddock, is a determined critic of Ocado and its business model. His combination with Morrisons could make life even more interesting for Ocado's embattled management. **[damian.reece@telegraph.co.uk][9]** **[![][10] ][11][Retail vacancies][12] at [Telegraph Jobs][11] ** **[![][13] ][12]** [X][14] Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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