Bidding war looms for supermarket chain Morrisons

Supermarket opening hours in Malaga over Easter

Supermarket opening hours in Malaga over Easter.

A bidding war looms for the supermarket chain Morrisons as rivals begin to circle.

Morrisons had already agreed to a staggering a £6.3bn takeover offer, but now a US investment firm is said to be considering rivalling this offer.

Apollo Global have not made an offer to Morrisons yet but have stated they are considering it. In the last couple of months this is the third firm to show an interest in taking over the supermarket chain. This news has fuelled rumours of a bidding war.

A US investment group led by the owner of Majestic Wine has already made an offer for Morrisons and this was accepted on Saturday, but this is not finalised yet.

Apollo have said that they are considering an offer and that they are, “in the preliminary stages of evaluating a possible offer for Morrisons”.

“No approach has been made to the board of Morrisons. There can be no certainty that any offer will be made, nor as to the terms on which any such offer might be made” said Apollo.

Morrisons employs over hundred thousand staff and has almost 500 shops. The supermarket is the fourth largest in the UK, and a firm favourite of many shoppers.

On Monday Morrisons saw their share prices reach 269p, this was an increase of 11 per cent.

Neil Wilson from Markets.com thinks that share prices could continue to rise. “I think there could well be another offer or two and 280p might be seen before it’s a knockout. We’ve talked fairly regularly about the amount of private equity money there is waiting for UK companies, which are cheap versus peers [overseas]” said Wilson.


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Alex
Written by

Alex Glenn

Originally from the UK, Alex is based in Almeria and is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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