Sainsbury’s is expanding its estate with the purchase of nine more Safeway stores from Morrisons.
It is thought the stores, which collectively had a gross asset value of £16.8m at the beginning of this year, cost just £10m to purchase.
Since it paid £3.3bn for Safeway in 2004, Morrison has sold around 200 stores altogether - over 150 more than it was required to sell by the Competition Commission. The deals have reportedly earned Morrisons £1.3bn so far.
Speculated reasons for selling the extra outlets are down to the stores being too small, or not fitting the retailer’s desired demographic profile.
A further 45 stores are expected to be sold off by February.
