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LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Private equity firm Clayton,
Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) is considering a possible cash offer for
British supermarket group Morrisons, it said on
Saturday.
CD&R "notes the press speculation regarding a potential
transaction involving Morrisons and confirms that it is
considering a possible cash offer for the issued and to be
issued share capital of Morrisons," it said in a statement.
It said there was no certainty an offer would be made.
CD&R's statement followed a Sky News report that it had made
a preliminary bid approach to the supermarket group's board that
could value Morrisons at 5.5 billion pounds ($7.6 billion).
Bradford, northern England-based Morrisons is Britain's
fourth-largest grocer by sales, trailing market leader Tesco
, Sainsbury's and Asda.
Shares in Morrisons, down 3% over the last year, closed on
Friday at 182 pence, valuing the group at 4.33 billion pounds.
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 6.8 billion pounds 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.
(Reporting by James Davey
Editing by Mark Heinrich and Mark Potter)
