Following the recent announcement that UK supermarket chains Sainsbury’s and Asda are proposing to merge their operations, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has commented that the deal is likely to be subject to a competition review which could last weeks, or even months if it is deemed to be a competition risk.
If the deal goes through, the merged company will overtake Tesco as the UK’s largest supermarket group. Sainsbury’s posted its results recently, announcing that sales and profit grew in 2017.
Analyst Comment
Asda is the last remnant’s of Walmart’s attempts to take a share of the European grocery market and the company took it over in 1999. However, retail analysts have suggested that Walmart is trying to concentrate on the work needed to compete against Amazon in its home territory. It withdrew from its German ventures in 2006, selling a chain it had acquired to Metro at a substantial loss. (BR)
