Musgrave Group today announced plans to pick up the debris from the sudden - if not entirely surprising – demise of Irish retailer Superquinn.
The target has been struggling for some time in an increasingly competitive retail market.
Considered an Irish equivalent of Sainsbury’s in terms of range, quality and price, the chain has been hit particularly hard by reland’s economic meltdown – which has proved a massive boost to the discounters and even resulted in the return of Iceland.
Musgrave’s move also brings to an end years of speculation as to who might be interested in buying Superquinn. For a long time the favourite was Asda. It is understood that a deal got pretty close before the global economy went belly-up.
Rumours also flew that Sainsbury’s had taken a look, but the financial crisis appears to have deterred most potential bidders.
Now the question is how Musgrave can succeed where the latest owners of Superquinn failed.
Musgrave is clearly a very savvy operator, which has carved out a particularly successful Irish operation while making significant strides in the UK via its Budgens and Londis operation.
But it generally operates a wholesale model – and has looked to sell-off its company-owned stores of late.
Should it look to do this with the 23 Superquinn stores, it may find it tough to find suitable buyers in the independent retail community – in much the same way as it has finding buyers for the stores it bought from The Co-operative Group in wake of the Somerfield deal.
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