By James Davey
BRADFORD, England (Reuters) - The new management of British food retailer Morrisons (L:MRW) got support on Thursday from the company's former boss Ken Morrison to help to diffuse tensions at its shareholder meeting over pay and strategy.
In March, Morrisons reported its lowest profit in eight years and said it would cut its dividend. In common with rivals Tesco (L:TSCO), Asda (N:WMT) and Sainsbury's (L:SBRY) it is battling record food price deflation and waging a price war to stem the loss of shoppers to discounters Aldi [ALDIEI.UL] and Lidl [LIDUK.UL].
Chief Executive David Potts and Chairman Andrew Higginson
received the public backing of Morrison at the meeting. He is the 83-year-old son of the grocer's founder, who ran the company for half a century before stepping down in 2008.
Last year, Morrison had used the company's annual meeting to lambast previous CEO Dalton Philips and to decry his strategy.
"It's a big job to restore the company's fortunes, please be patient and give management some breathing space," Morrison told investors at Thursday's meeting in a marked change of tone.
Potts and Higginson used their first annual meeting to tell shareholders they would review the company's pay policies in light of a large payout given to Philips, who was ousted in January.
The two, both former senior executives at rival Tesco, adopted a more conciliatory approach after previous annual meetings turned into heated affairs.
Higginson said it looked like voters would approve the company's remuneration report but said in light of a significant vote against it, they would review future policies.
He also noted concerns about Philips' leaving package, which including payoff, bonus, salary and other benefits totalled more than 3 million pounds ($4.6 million), and said this was the minimum that could be paid under his contract.
Potts has taken steps to get Morrison onside. The former boss told Reuters last month that Potts has sought his counsel and the pair have toured stores together.
Morrison told the meeting on Thursday he had recommended to Potts that some former colleagues return to the company.
Morrison's wider family own about 10 percent of the retail group's equity.
($1 = 0.6490 pounds)