Qatar cuts Sainsbury’s stake to end reign as top shareholder

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund plans to reduce its stake in Britain’s second-largest supermarket group Sainsbury’s by nearly 4 percent, 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) apiece in a secondary offering with JP Morgan as the sole bookrunner, according to the term sheet. Sainsbury’s shares are up 23 percent this year and closed at 326 pence on Tuesday.

The wealth fund has been a Sainsbury’s shareholder since 2007. That year its holding peaked at 25 percent and it abandoned a potential bid. It started selling in 2021.

In October last year, the fund reduced its holding by about 5 percent through a nearly $400 million share sale.

Qatar’s fund plans to sell shares worth about 265.5 million pounds, reducing its stake to 6.82 percent from the current 10.48 percent, according to LSEG data. The fund would drop to the fourth-largest shareholder from first place.

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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 percent, has said 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 capitalisation of 7.44 billion pounds as of Tuesday’s close.