Sainsbury's and Asda in talks about £10bn grocery merger

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Yeah, i think Aldi is £8.50ph and the others are minimum wage.

My daughter works at Morrisons, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you think incorrectly.

[General Maximus]

I have copied some key points below:

https://news.sky.com/story/sainsbury...orces-11353408

Sainsbury's has agreed to merge with supermarket rival Asda - and plans to maintain both brands.
There are no plans to close Sainsbury's or Asda stores though executives are targeting savings of £500m, including "operational efficiencies" and by opening Argos concessions in Asda stores.
Sainsbury's also said customers would see benefits including price cuts of 10% on many of the products that customers by regularly.
Sainsbury's - which also owns Argos - said the merger would create a network of more than 2,800 Sainsbury's, Asda and Argos locations. It will have more than 330,000 employees.
It comes at a time when the major players are battling to remain competitive, with households facing an income squeeze and German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl posing a growing threat.
The announcement also revealed that Asda's operating profit for 2017 had fallen by 15% to £720m, despite a recovery in sales, as it piled investment into keeping prices down.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury's reported a 19% fall in its annual profit for the 52 weeks to 10 March to £409m as it counted the cost of a stores shake-up.
Plans for the merger will see the newly-enlarged business led by Sainsbury's chief executive Mike Coupe with Asda continuing to be run from Leeds with its own chief executive - who will join the board.
Asda chief executive Roger Burnley said: "The combination of Asda and Sainsbury's into a single retailing group will be great news for Asda customers, allowing us to deliver even lower prices in store and even greater choice.
"Asda will continue to be Asda, but by coming together with Sainsbury's supported by Walmart, we can further accelerate our existing strategy and make our offer even more compelling and competitive."
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "There are clear benefits from the two supermarkets joining forces, particularly when it comes to leveraging their combined buying power, which should result in both lower prices for customers and higher margins for the business.

I don't believe for a second that there won't be store closures and job losses. They must think we are all stupid if they think saying that is going to get them off the hook with the unions and through the CMA approval process. There will need to be firm guarantees in place because I can bet that after a year and everything has settled down it will be "due to challenging times in the retail sector we have had to take the unforeseen and regrettable decision to close 40% of our stores. This will help realign the business and ensure we continue even better prices to our customers bla bla bla..."

[tweetiepooh]

The only supermarket I've really had issues with has been Tesco. And that was a local staffing problem - why put a veggie on the meat counter, or someone who doesn't eat cheese on the cheese counter.

ASDA have been useful to source certain ingredients e.g. canned pinto beans but there isn't a branch local to us. Generally I use Waitrose or Aldi as they are in walking distance. I prefer Waitrose because the staff know their stuff and their range is better but Aldi really do well and are priced better. Tesco is probably the biggest but the hardest to get to so Sainsbury's are next in line. My preferred though is to use local suppliers where I can especially for meat which for the same "quality level" is cheaper than the supermarkets.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I have copied some key points below:

https://news.sky.com/story/sainsbury...orces-11353408



I don't believe for a second that there won't be store closures and job losses. They must think we are all stupid if they think saying that is going to get them off the hook with the unions and through the CMA approval process. There will need to be firm guarantees in place because I can bet that after a year and everything has settled down it will be "due to challenging times in the retail sector we have had to take the unforeseen and regrettable decision to close 40% of our stores. This will help realign the business and ensure we continue even better prices to our customers bla bla bla..."

The first stores to close will be Argos once outlets have been moved into Asda and Sainsbury's.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by pip08456

The first stores to close will be Argos once outlets have been moved into Asda and Sainsbury's.

Indeed no good have standalone stores when you can fit them quite easily into the spare supermarket space both companies have plus you save on the rent , business rates and overheads at the same time.

[weenie]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Yeah, i think Aldi is £8.50ph and the others are minimum wage.

My eldest son has just finished working for Sainsburys and he was not on minimum wage, he found Sainsburys to treat their staff well and were very fair to him when it came to time off for his studies. He did say that jobs will be lost should this merger happen despite what is said, having said that he is glad he won't be there to see the changes this may bring to old colleagues.

Sainsburys atm is going through a huge change as they plan to axe thousands of management jobs from its stores to save money, well they were at the time of him leaving on Saturday.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by pip08456

The first stores to close will be Argos once outlets have been moved into Asda and Sainsbury's.

The upbeat Mike Coupe of Sainsbury's said today that Argos had grown its outlets under Sainsbury's ownership - up from about 760 to over 850. Argos is an example of a company that has adapted well to the online onslaught and should benefit from the demise of Toys'R'Us in the UK. But as others have said, if there's a nearby Sainsbury store, Argos will relocate into it once its lease expires. Makes good sense to me.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by weenie

Sainsburys atm is going through a huge change as they plan to axe thousands of management jobs from its stores to save money, well they were at the time of him leaving on Saturday.

Asda did this a couple of years ago, get rid of a tonne of managers and replace them with supervisors. They rename the job roles to make it look like it is a new position and not a direct replacement of a previous role.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

The upbeat Mike Coupe of Sainsbury's said today that Argos had grown its outlets under Sainsbury's ownership - up from about 760 to over 850. Argos is an example of a company that has adapted well to the online onslaught and should benefit from the demise of Toys'R'Us in the UK. But as others have said, if there's a nearby Sainsbury store, Argos will relocate into it once its lease expires. Makes good sense to me.

They'll also be being incorporated into ASDA stores.

So does this mean Wall Mart will become the biggest shareholder of the biggest supermarket chain in the UK?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Damien

So does this mean Wall Mart will become the biggest shareholder of the biggest supermarket chain in the UK?

According to this they would be the biggest shareholder.

https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/n...-group-limited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainsbury%27s

That's pretty bad IMO.

[denphone]

There is no doubt the logic behind Sainsbury's takeover of Asda and Tesco's purchase of Booker is the big 80lb gorilla Amazon lurking on the horizon plus you have Lidl and Aldi making bigger inroads into the UK market and they are no lightweights either..

Originally Posted by Damien

That's pretty bad IMO.

Why ?

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Damien

That's pretty bad IMO.

Not really, Asda is worth more. You would think that Sainsburys would be majority shareholder as they are buying it but it makes sense that the company that is worth more retains control. My only worry is that Walmart drag Sainsburys downhill because as far as they are concerned everything is about price and cost and i can see the Taste The Difference range disappearing.