London, Jan. 13 - Privately-owned Somerfield has received expressions of interest from four separate parties interested in buying the grocery chain, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Sunday.
But the company, which is owned by a consortium of Apax Partners, Barclays Capital and property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz, has not decided whether or not to pursue talks, the person said.
A Competition Commission report into the grocery market in October last year found there were no competition issues to prevent the expansion of the U.K.'s four biggest supermarket chains - J Sainsbury PLC, Tesco PLC, Asda Group Ltd and WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC - through acquisition of smaller players such as Somerfield. The report said, "we do not see evidence of unfair distortions in competition between large grocery retailers and small stores."
Somerfield was taken private in a GBP1.1 billion deal in December 2005 and its private equity owners have since carried out a major restructuring of the business.