Buses - wait for ages then three come along at once. Such is the case with the interest shown by CD&R, Apollo and Fortress in Morrisons, an equity that has been sidelined in price terms for a sustained period. I can't comment on the Morrisons bid, as we are a broker to the company, but looking at the sector more broadly, we can ask why other buckets of capital want to own supermarkets and the like when equity capital markets do not. Is this some form of market failure? Morrisons, on which we await the outcome of the bid situation, is far from the only story. The Issa brothers (high-net-worth individuals/family office) and TDR Europe (private equity) previously acquired the lion's share of Asda from US retail behemoth Walmart for more than £6bn, while Canada's rampaging forecourt business Couche-Tard attempted to buy Carrefour, only for the French government to block the approach due to the retailer's national treasure status.
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