Waitrose became the first UK retailer to buy former Safeway stores from Morrisons yesterday, taking 19 off the Bradford-based chain.
As reported earlier this week on freshinfo, Waitrose is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of the store disposal that Morrisons is obliged to undertake as part of its £3 billion Safeway takeover deal.
The 19 stores it purchased yesterday, for an undisclosed sum that is thought to be in the region of £200 million, included four that were not on the original list of 52 compiled to meet Office of Fair Trading demands. Morrisons has suggested unofficially that no other chain is likely to buy as large a chunk of the estate.
Waitrose therefore expands, both in size and geographically. It now has 163 stores and stretches its network beyond its previous northernmost boundary of Newark. Waitrose now has shops in Harrogate and Otley, in North and West Yorkshire.
Morrisons was keen on Waitrose as the customer bases and store profiles of the two chains are seen as the least competitive. Strategically, it would prefer to dispose of its stores as cannily as possible, to avoid a build-up of further intense high street competition in key areas of strength.
Morrisons still has 37 stores to sell.
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