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Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund plans to reduce its stake in Britain’s second-largest supermarket group Sainsbury’s SBRY.L by nearly 4 per cent, a term sheet showed on Tuesday, ending its near-two-decade reign as top shareholder in the chain.
Qatar Investment Authority plans to offer shares at 317.6 pence ($4.20) per share in a secondary offering with JPMorgan as the sole bookrunner, according to the term sheet. Sainsbury’s shares are up 23 per cent this year and closed at 326 pence on Tuesday.
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has been a Sainsbury’s shareholder since 2007. That year its holding peaked at 25 per cent and it abandoned a potential bid. It started selling in 2021.
In October last year, the fund reduced its holding by about 5 per cent through a nearly $400m share sale.
Qatar’s fund plans to sell shares worth about 265.5 million pounds, reducing its stake to 6.82 per cent from the current 10.48 per cent, according to LSEG data. The fund would drop to the fourth-largest shareholder from first place.
Sainsbury’s and the fund did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Sainsbury’s, whose UK grocery market share has grown to a near-decade high of 15.3 per cent, has said that it now expects to deliver retail underlying operating profit of more than 1 billion pounds for its year to March 2026.
It has a market capitalization of 7.44 billion pounds as of Tuesday’s close.
