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LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - Singapore's sovereign wealth
fund has joined the Fortress-led private equity consortium
making a recommended offer for the British supermarket group
Morrisons, the companies said on Wednesday.
Britain's fourth largest supermarket has agreed to a
takeover led by SoftBank-owned Fortress Investment
Group, valuing it at 6.3 billion pounds ($8.8 billion). Two
other private equity groups, CD&R and Apollo, have also shown
interest.
However the Fortress-led group may still have more work to
do after Morrisons' biggest shareholder, Silchester, said on
Tuesday it was not inclined to support the deal because there
was little in the offer that could not be achieved as a listed
company.
Silchester owns a 15.14% stake in Morrisons. The offer
agreement includes a scheme of arrangement with a 75% hurdle for
shareholder acceptance and squeeze out.
GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, holds around 0.21%
of the issued share capital of Morrisons.
($1 = 0.7202 pounds)
(Reporting by Kate Holton, Editing by Paul Sandle and Sarah
Young)
