Former retail bosses front rival £6.5bn bids for Asda
According to reports the former chief executive of Debenhams, Rob Templeman and ex-Asda chief executive Paul Mason are leading rival £6.5bn private-equity bids for Leeds-headquartered Asda.
The supermarket’s US owners Walmart confirmed in July it had restarted talks to sell its controlling stake in the business. Now Sky News has reported that “according to insiders” Templeman is working with Apollo Global Management on its bid and that Mason is working with Lone Star Funds.
Both men have strong retail pedigree with Templeman having also run Halford, Homebase and Harveys Furnishing Group. While Mason has previously run Somerfield which was taken over by the Co-operative group in 2009, since then he has chaired Matalan, Cath Kidston, New Look and Dr Martens and was reportedly involved in a plan to create a new supermarket chain back by Apax Partners last year.
Bids are expected to be made next month for the majority stake of the UK’s third largest supermarket, with the auction believed to conclude before the end of 2020 resulting in Walmart retaining only a minority stake.
Alongside Apollo Global and Lone Star, TDR Capital – the owners of Doncaster-based Keepmoat Homes, are also reportedly considering a bid.
The sale comes after fter the merger between Asda and Sainsbury’s which valued the business at £7bn was blocked by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in 2019 and amid continued price competition within the grocery market and growing consumer changes brought about by the current Pandemic.
Asda chief executive Roger Burnley
Asda posted a 3.8% increase year-on-year for like-for-like sales in its second quarter update this week and noted record online sales figure, claiming that Covid-19 had “created a structural shift in customer behaviours towards grocery shopping.”
Roger Burnley Asda’s CEO and President added that the business was accelerating its online capacity to “meet levels we had anticipated reaching in eight years within a matter of weeks and we will continue to expand this offer.”
This change in shopping habits brought about by lockdown also meant the business has recruited 23,000 temporary workers to ensure it could continue to serve customers.
