Asda to dispose of 30 Netto stores

Asda has put 30 of its recently acquired Netto stores on the market in order to satisfy the Office of Fair Trading’s rules.

The supermarket giant bought the British chain of 193 Netto stores from its Danish owner in May in a push to compete more effectively with the market leader Tesco, and to increase its numbers of smaller stores.

The Office of Fair Trading has now asked Asda to dispose of part of its Netto discount shop portfolio. WM Morrison is thought to be interested in purchasing some of the outlets for sale, as the company has also recently adopted a strategy to operate some smaller stores.

Asda paid £778 million for the 193 shops - the equivalent of £4 million per store.

The deal was the first undertaken by Asda since it was taken over by Walmart in 1999, after having been linked with other potential acquisitions including Argos, Matalan and Woolworths, according to reports.

Part of the Dansk Supermarked group, West Yorkshire-based Netto has had a presence in Britain for about 30 years. Unlike its competitors discount stores Aldi and Lldl, Netto did not profit from customers’ tighter purse strings in the depth of the recession.

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