Asda is consulting with the Competition Commission to decipher whether antitrust issues could get in the way of a bid for Sainsbury’s, Reuters has reported.
A comined Asda/Sainsbury’s would, at current levels, have 1,104 stores, against Tesco’s 1,252 outlets in the UK.
According to reports, a consortium of private equity firms - CVC, Blackstone, KKR and Texas Pacific Group - is believed to be close to making a 585p-a-share offer for Sainsbury's over the next week.
Any takeover looked in jeopardy at the end of last week, when Sainsbury's trustees said that a prospective bidder for the chain could face a £3 billion funding shortfall in the pensions scheme which serves existing and former staff. But that has been dismissed as "sabre-rattling". By one City pensions expert.
Sainsbury's told the Takeover Panel the size of the pension deficit was closer to £1bn.
