Bankers Prepare £5m Debt Refinancing for Morrisons Sale

20 Feb 2014 --- Shares in Morrisons rose 5% today following reports that the founding family has been in talks with private equity firms on the possibility of taking the supermarket private. Bankers are working on debt refinancing packages of around 5 billion pounds ($8.35bn) to back a potential sale of the British supermarket chain Wm Morrison Supermarkets to private equity funds.

The founding family of the company, which owns a 9.5% stake, have already contacted buyout firms to guage interest in taking the business private. The news follows a fall in Christmas sales for the company.

Firms including CVC, Carlyle and Apax are reported to have been approached to discuss their interest in a joint bid.

In January Morrisons reported a 5.6% drop in Christmas sales and yesterday data indicated its sales had again fallen, this time by 2.5% in the three months to the start of February 2014.