New Morrisons boss invests 1 mln stg in firm's stock

LONDON, March 20 (Reuters) - David Potts, the new boss of British supermarket Morrisons, bought over 1 million pounds ($1.47 million) worth of shares in the company, days after he joined the struggling chain with the job of trying to turn it around.

Morrisons, Britain's fourth-largest supermaket operator whose profits plunged to their lowest level for eight years earlier this month, said on Friday that Potts had bought 508,000 shares at 205.85 pence per share.

Former Tesco executive Potts started his new job at the Bradford, northern England-based grocer on Monday, launching an appeal for customers to tell him what they want, as the chain grapples with food price deflation and intense competition as well as a shift to online shopping.

Potts also plans to work in a store in April and has encouraged other head office staff to do the same, as part of a drive for more customer feedback.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Morrisons traded up 1 percent at 207.20 pence at 1032 GMT on Friday. The stock is down 0.6 percent over the last twelve months compared to a 6.5 percent rise in Britain's bluechip index. ($1 = 0.6786 pounds) (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by James Davey)