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Somerfield Tired of Waiting for the Bid Queue to Move

Posted on: Saturday, 10 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 9--Supermarkets chain Somerfield has told two potential bidders it is fed up with the months of waiting and wants to bring things to a "prompt conclusion."

It is seven months since Baugur triggered the bid interest. Although the Icelandic group has dropped out of the running while its founder faces fraud charges, two consortia are still in the ring. One comprises Barclays Capital, Apax and Robert Tchenguiz. The other is made up of the Livingstone brothers, who own the David Clulow chain of opticians and are backed by Japanese bank Nomura.

Somerfield today said it had conducted extensive talks "with a number of parties". It added: "Thus far, there has been no formal offer and, accordingly, the board is now seeking to bring the process to a prompt conclusion."

Analysts said this could be taken to mean Somerfield would like the Takeover Panel to issue a "put-up-or-shut-up statement", setting a deadline for the bidders to act. Somerfield also said group sales for the first 16 weeks of the year to 20 August were down by 1.8 percent, with Somerfield stores showing a 0.3 percent rise and Kwik Save a 5.7 percent fall.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Evening Standard, London

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SOF,

Source: Evening Standard

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