CD&R offers to sell petrol stations so watchdog will green light £7bn Morrisons takeover
Morrisons’ new private equity owner has suggested it would sell an undisclosed number of petrol stations in order to be approved by the UK’s competition watchdog.
The competition watchdog had previously expressed concerns as Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) also owns petrol station titan Motor Fuel Group (MFG).
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the takeover could lead to petrol prices rising in some 121 locations across the UK.
However, it said on Thursday that it had received an offer from CD&R to sell a number of petrol stations.
“The CMA considers that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the undertakings offered by CD&R, or a modified version of them, might be accepted by the CMA under the enterprise act 2002,” the CMA said in a statement.
Morrisons runs some 339 petrol stations at its supermarkets while MFG oversees 921 petrol stations across the UK under various brands.