Billionaire Philip Green, the owner of UK retail groups BHS and Arcadia, has become the latest party to express interest in taking over UK supermarket chain Safeway.
Green said he was considering a cash offer for Safeway and had requested financial information from the company. He also said that it was not yet definite that an offer would be made, and that his interest was still at an early stage.
If Green was successful with a bid for Safeway it would be his first move into food retailing, giving him a portfolio of more than 3,000 stores and combined annual sales of £12bn (US$19.3bn), reported BBC Online.
Following Morrisons’ bid on 9 January, retailers Sainsbury’s and Wal-Mart, and US venture capital firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, have all expressed interest in Safeway.
