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Clayton Dubilier and Rice (CD&R), an American private equity company, is believed to be gearing up to place a counter bid on rival Fortress’s £6.7bn offer for Morrisons before its deadline on Friday (20th August).
According to The Times, Clayton Dubilier and Rice will have to raise its bid to 275p, although it is understood that this figure could rise to 280p to secure the deal.
CD&R originally started the ongoing private bidding war for the supermarket giant in June, when it placed a £5.5bn offer for its takeover – vauling the group at 230p per share.
However, this offer was later beaten by US private equity group Fortress, who placed a 252p-a-share offer in July for the grocery chain, vauling it at £6.3bn.
While Morrisons initially accepted this offer, kickback from some of the group’s largest shareholders, spurred Fortress to offer a revised takeover offer worth £6.7bn or 272p per share.
Sources close to the outlet said that the Morrisons board would not have agreed to give CD&R more time if they had not been “confident” that it would result in a rival offer.
Morrisons, which is headed by David Potts, has almost 500 shops and more than 110,000 staff.
