Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

News

SoftBank-Backed Fortress Investment Strikes $8.7 Billion Deal to Buy Morrisons U.K. Grocery Chain

SoftBank-Backed Fortress Investment Strikes .7 Billion Deal to Buy Morrisons U.K. Grocery Chain

A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Fortress Investment Group LLC agreed Saturday to acquire U.K. grocery chain WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC for more than $8.7 billion, a bet that the retailer can thrive in a hypercompetitive industry grappling with the shift to online commerce.

New York-based Fortress has joined forces with Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, and the real-estate arm of Koch Industries, a private conglomerate headed by billionaire Charles Koch, to make the offer of £6.3 billion, equivalent to $8.71 billion.

That sets up a potential bidding war for the U.K.’s fourth-largest grocery-chain operator after it rejected a £5.5 billion takeover proposal last month from U.S. private-equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

A CD&R representative declined to comment Saturday. The buyout firm has said it was considering making a formal offer. It has until July 17 to make that decision.

The Fortress-led deal is worth roughly 42% more than Morrisons’s trading price in mid-June, before Clayton Dubilier & Rice’s interest in the grocery chain became public.

You May Also Like

World

France, which has opened its borders to Canadian tourists, is eager to see Canada reopen to the French. The Canadian border remains closed...

Health

Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario is experiencing a “deepening state of emergency” as a result of surging COVID-19 cases in the community...

World

The virus that causes COVID-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study...

World

April Ross and Alix Klineman won the first Olympic gold medal for the United States in women’s beach volleyball since 2012 on Friday,...