Morrisons declines to comment on report of £5.5bn bid approach
Morrisons has declined to comment on a report that private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) has made a preliminary bid approach to the supermarket group’s board that could value it at £5.5bn.
A spokesperson for Bradford-based Morrisons had no comment on the Sky News report. A spokesperson for CD&R also had no comment.
Morrisons is Britain’s fourth largest grocer by sales, trailing market leader Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda.
Shares in Morrisons, down 3 per cent over the last year, closed Friday at 182p, valuing the group at £4.33bn.
Sky News reported CD&R has begun approaching banks about financing a potential bid for Morrisons in recent days.
It said a bid could involve Terry Leahy, the former Tesco CEO who is a senior adviser to CD&R.
When at Tesco, Mr Leahy was the boss of Andrew Higginson and David Potts, who are now Morrisons’ chairman and CEO respectively.
A bid for Morrisons would follow Walmart’s recent sale of a majority stake in Asda to the Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital.
That deal valued Asda at £6.8bn and followed Sainsbury’s failure to takeover Asda after an agreed deal was blocked by Britain’s competition regulator in 2019.
Morrisons has a partnership agreement with Amazon and there has been persistent speculation that it could emerge as a possible bidder.
