Sainsbury's US supermarket chain Shaw's is to chase further acquisition opportunities this year as its growth strategy proves "very successful". Sainsbury assistant managing director Sara Weller said the 185-store chain had performed very buoyantly over the last 12 months. It will now hunt out further acquisition opportunities in and around New England. Last year Shaw's rebadged 17 stores acquired from Grand Union and 11 Star Market stores. Weller said: "Shaws has seen some organic growth and done a very good job of integrating new business over the last year." She added that Sainsbury in the UK was increasingly swapping notes with Shaw's on merchandising ­ with Sainsbury learning from Shaw's use of instore modules such as Kosher and Wild Harvest. The two businesses are also increasingly overlapping through the use of the GNX trading exchange, Weller added. Shaw's like-for-like sales were up 3.9%, with underlying profit up 18.9% to £137m for the year to March 30. Total sales were up 12% to £3.1bn. {{NEWS }}

Topics