Morrisons is one of the most recognizable names on the British high street — the fourth-largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, feeding millions of families every week from roughly 500 supermarkets and over 1,700 convenience stores.
But the story of who owns it today is one of the most dramatic in British retail history. It involves a £7 billion private equity takeover, a crippling debt mountain, a French-Lebanese CEO brought in to save it, and a bombshell merger story that broke just days ago that could reshape the entire UK grocery market.
Who Owns Morrisons Right Now in 2026?
Morrisons — formally known as Wm Morrison Supermarkets — is owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), a New York-based private equity firm. CD&R completed its acquisition of Morrisons in October 2021 in a deal valued at approximately £7 billion, beating a rival consortium led by SoftBank-owned Fortress Investment Group in a highly competitive auction.
Since that deal closed, Morrisons has been a privately held company, delisted from the London Stock Exchange where it had traded for over 50 years.
The ultimate parent company sitting above Morrisons in the ownership chain is Market Topco — the holding company through which CD&R controls the business. Under Market Topco sits Market Holdco 3 Limited, and beneath that sits the trading entity of Morrisons itself. This layered holding structure is typical of large private equity acquisitions.
For similar private equity ownership stories, read about who owns Hyatt and who owns Barnes and Noble.
Ownership and Key Stakeholders Table
| Owner / Party | Role | Stake | Key Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) | Private Equity Owner | Controlling majority stake | US PE firm; acquired Morrisons in October 2021 for ~£7 billion |
| Market Topco | Ultimate Parent Holding Company | 100% of Morrisons | CD&R’s holding vehicle at the top of the ownership structure |
| Rami Baitiéh | Chief Executive Officer | No ownership stake | French-Lebanese executive; joined from Carrefour in November 2023 |
| Vindi Banga | Board Member (CD&R Senior Partner) | CD&R representative | Senior Partner at CD&R; has served on Morrisons board since 2021 |
| Terry Leahy | Senior CD&R Adviser | No direct ownership | Former Tesco CEO; CD&R’s senior adviser during the acquisition |
| Motor Fuel Group (MFG) | Former Morrisons subsidiary | Co-owned by CD&R | Bought Morrisons’ 337 petrol forecourts for £2.5 billion in April 2024 |
| Morrisons Daily | Convenience arm (formerly McColl’s) | 100% owned by Morrisons | Acquired McColl’s out of administration in May 2022 |
| No public shareholders | N/A | Private company | Morrisons delisted from LSE on completion of CD&R takeover in 2021 |
The Origin Story: A Bradford Market Stall in 1899
The story of Morrisons begins not in a corporate boardroom, but on a Bradford market stall at the very end of the Victorian era.
William Morrison founded the business in 1899 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, selling butter and eggs at a market stall. His son Ken Morrison — born 20 October 1931 — took over a small group of shops by 1956 and spent the next five decades transforming it into one of the most powerful retail empires in British history.
Ken Morrison was the longest-serving chairman of a top-100 public company in the UK, and it was under his leadership that Morrisons became famous for its unique model of owning its own food manufacturing — making everything from fresh bread to packaged meat in-house rather than relying entirely on third-party suppliers.
Morrisons floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1967 and continued expanding aggressively. Its biggest move came in March 2004 when it acquired Safeway — one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK — in a deal that instantly made Morrisons a truly national retailer.
The acquisition was not without pain, but it cemented Morrisons’ position as one of the Big Four British supermarkets alongside Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda.
How CD&R Came to Own Morrisons
For most of its life, Morrisons was a publicly listed company. That changed permanently in 2021 — and the story of how it happened is one of the most dramatic takeover battles in British corporate history.
In June 2021, CD&R — which already had former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy as a senior adviser — made an initial approach to Morrisons. The board rejected it. A rival bid consortium emerged, led by SoftBank-owned Fortress Investment Group, which the Morrisons board initially supported.
But CD&R came back with a higher offer, and on 2 October 2021, it won a formal auction for Morrisons by bidding a single penny per share more than the Fortress consortium. The final winning price was 285 pence per share, valuing the business at £7 billion — with total deal value including assumed debt reaching close to £10 billion.
On 19 October 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) cleared the deal. Morrisons was formally taken private and delisted from the London Stock Exchange, ending more than 54 years as a public company. The takeover loaded Morrisons with £6.6 billion of new debt — a burden that has defined every aspect of the business ever since.
The Debt Crisis: £7.5 Billion and Counting
The single biggest consequence of CD&R’s takeover has been the debt it placed on Morrisons’ balance sheet — and the long, painful process of paying it down.
Net debt at Market Topco, the ultimate parent company, increased to £7.52 billion in the year to the end of October 2025, up from £7.07 billion the previous year, according to newly filed accounts. Before the CD&R acquisition, Morrisons carried net debt of around £3.2 billion.
The takeover more than doubled that burden instantly, and the debt has grown further since through rising lease liabilities and £2 billion in preference share obligations payable to CD&R itself.
The pressure of this debt forced Morrisons to make painful decisions. Most significantly, in April 2024, Morrisons sold its entire portfolio of 337 petrol forecourts to Motor Fuel Group (MFG) — also owned by CD&R — for £2.5 billion.
The sale raised much-needed cash but cost Morrisons a highly profitable revenue stream. Morrisons also announced plans to close more than 100 former McColl’s convenience stores, blaming rising government-driven costs for making them unviable.
Despite all of this, Morrisons has made real progress in reducing the original takeover debt, with £1 billion of acquisition financing reportedly still outstanding and the company extending its term loan facilities from 2027 to 2030.
Rami Baitiéh: The Man Tasked with the Turnaround
When CD&R needed someone to steady the ship and rebuild Morrisons’ reputation with shoppers, it turned to a French-Lebanese executive with a formidable track record of retail turnarounds across Europe and South America.
Rami Baitiéh joined Morrisons as Managing Director in November 2023, having previously served as CEO of Carrefour France — a role in which he had delivered dramatic improvements in sales, customer experience, and operational efficiency.
He was a surprise and unconventional choice, but CD&R needed someone who had already turned around a large, struggling supermarket in a competitive market. Baitiéh had done exactly that, and then some.
His approach at Morrisons has been refreshingly direct. He announced a target to cut costs by £1 billion and committed to keeping prices competitive.
In the most recent financial year, Morrisons reported 12 consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth and maintained its EBITDA at £835 million, despite rising costs and a cyber incident that caused an IT systems outage just before Christmas 2024. The company posted a statutory loss of £381 million for the year — largely due to debt interest payments — but the underlying trading picture was improving.
Baitiéh himself was blunt about the challenges: “We had an avalanche of costs,” he told reporters, referring to rising energy prices, wage bills, and government-mandated employer costs.
The Sainsbury’s Merger Bombshell: What Just Happened
The most dramatic Morrisons story in years broke just three days ago — on 5 October 2026 — when the Financial Times revealed that Sainsbury’s and Morrisons had held preliminary merger talks between November 2025 and February 2026.
The talks — which would have created a combined supermarket group with approximately 23.6% of the UK grocery market, compared with market leader Tesco’s 27.8% — ultimately ended when Sainsbury’s walked away.
The discussions are no longer active, though people close to the situation have not ruled out negotiations restarting in the future.
CD&R is understood to remain open to a combination between Morrisons and another major supermarket group. Asda has also been cited by Sky News as a potential participant in a fresh round of sector consolidation.
Any merger of Sainsbury’s and Morrisons would likely face intense scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) — the same regulator that blocked Sainsbury’s proposed £7.3 billion takeover of Asda back in 2019.
This is the biggest strategic question facing Morrisons right now: will CD&R sell to a supermarket rival, find a new private equity buyer, or continue the debt-reduction journey and hold the business for longer? The Sainsbury’s story suggests a sale or merger is actively on the table.
For more stories about major corporate ownership shifts, explore who owns Fanatics and who owns Sysco.
Morrisons’ Market Position in 2026
Despite all the debt pressure and management upheaval, Morrisons remains a significant force in British grocery retail.
The supermarket holds approximately 8.4% of the UK grocery market as of 2026 — making it one of the country’s biggest food retailers, though it has slipped from its peak as fourth-largest to effectively competing in a tightening five-way battle between Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi, and itself.
Aldi overtook Morrisons in 2022 to become the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket by sales — a humbling milestone that underlined the scale of the competitive challenge.
The rise of German discounters Aldi and Lidl, who together now account for 19.3% of grocery sales, has been one of the most disruptive forces in British retail over the past decade.
Morrisons operates approximately 500 supermarkets and more than 1,700 convenience locations — the latter largely inherited from its 2022 rescue of McColl’s, now rebranded as Morrisons Daily.
It employs around 95,000 people and is headquartered at Hilmore House in Bradford — a building named after the mother of former chairman Ken Morrison, who passed away in February 2017.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Who owns Morrisons in 2026?
Morrisons is owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), a US private equity firm that acquired it for £7 billion in October 2021.
Q2. Is Morrisons publicly traded?
No. Morrisons was delisted from the London Stock Exchange in October 2021 when CD&R completed its takeover and took the company fully private.
Q3. Who founded Morrisons and when?
Morrisons was founded by William Morrison in 1899 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, starting as a butter and egg stall on a local market.
Q4. Who is the current CEO of Morrisons?
Rami Baitiéh, a French-Lebanese executive formerly of Carrefour France, has served as CEO of Morrisons since November 2023.
Q5. How much debt does Morrisons have in 2026?
Net debt at Morrisons’ parent company Market Topco stood at £7.52 billion as of the year ending October 2025, according to newly filed accounts.
Q6. Did Sainsbury’s try to merge with Morrisons?
Yes. Sainsbury’s and Morrisons held preliminary merger talks between November 2025 and February 2026, but Sainsbury’s walked away. Talks are not currently active but have not been ruled out.
Q7. What happened to Morrisons petrol stations?
In April 2024, Morrisons sold its 337 petrol forecourts to Motor Fuel Group (MFG) for £2.5 billion to help reduce the debt taken on during CD&R’s takeover.
Q8. What is Morrisons Daily?
Morrisons Daily is Morrisons’ convenience store brand — the former McColl’s newsagent chain that Morrisons rescued from administration in May 2022 and rebranded across more than 1,700 locations.
Morrisons is 100% privately owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) — the New York-based private equity firm that acquired it for £7 billion in October 2021 and loaded it with over £6.6 billion of debt in the process.
After more than 54 years as a public company on the London Stock Exchange, Morrisons is now a private business fighting its way back to stability under CEO Rami Baitiéh, who has delivered 12 consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth while cutting costs aggressively.
The debt pile stands at £7.52 billion as of the latest accounts, though the company has made significant progress paying down the original acquisition financing.
CD&R is understood to be open to selling to a rival supermarket group — and Sainsbury’s, which held preliminary merger talks with Morrisons between November 2025 and February 2026, could yet return to the table.
Asda is also being watched. For a 125-year-old business that started as a market stall in Bradford, the next chapter of Morrisons’ ownership story is as uncertain — and as fascinating — as any in its long history.