Sainsbury’s and Asda, the UK arm of Walmart, confirmed on Monday they are merging to create Britain’s biggest supermarket group by market share, surpassing current leader Tesco.
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The combination will result in Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, holding 42 percent of the equity of the combined business and receiving 2.975 billion pounds ($4.1 billion), valuing Asda at about 7.3 billion pounds.
Joining together the UK’s second and third-biggest supermarket chains will reduce costs and increase buying power but could face major regulatory hurdles.
($1 = 0.7255 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young)