The acquisition by UK supermarket chain Asda, which is owned by US retail titan Wal-Mart, of four stores from rival grocery retailer Wm Morrison Supermarkets has been approved by the UK’s competition authority.
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The UK’s Office of Fair Trading announced that it had decided, based on the information currently available to it, not to refer the acquisition to the Competition Commission.
Wm Morrison announced in mid September that it had agreed to sell four Safeway stores to Asda. Three of the stores – Shrewsbury, Coventry (Abbey Park) and Burton on Trent – are among those which Morrisons was required by the OFT to sell as a condition of its approval of Morrisons’ takeover of Safeway.
Morrisons also agreed to sell the Safeway store at Northampton (Kingsthorpe) as part of the transaction although this store was not on the OFT divestment list.
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