Somerfield snaps up Texaco stores

SOMERFIELD has acquired 13 forecourt convenience stores from Texaco, the subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, and will lease 105 others. The announcement came as the bid battle to take over the UK's fifth-largest supermarket chain is hotting up.

Somerfield will pay a total of £15.3m for 13 forecourt stores and stock from the rest. Texaco is selling the other 105 to the new company Azure Property LLP, which is jointly run by Palmer Capital Partners and Deutsche Property Asset Management Ltd, which will then lease them to Somerfield.

This brings Somerfield's forecourt convenience store portfolio will increase to 162 stores. Once redeveloped, the stores will be fitted out and operated under its Somerfield Essentials format.

Meanwhile the £1bn bid-battle for Somerfield moved up a gear yesterday, according to The Times.

The newspaper said that London & Regional - the property group owned by Ian and Richard Livingstone and backed by Japanese bank Nomura - has raised its offer to match that of the consortium formed by Robert Tchenguiz, the Iranian-born property tycoon, and Baugur, the Icelandic retail investor.

But the Times did not name its sources.

The Baugur-Tchenguiz consortium, which is backed by private equity firms Barclays Capital and Apax, wrote to Somerfield yesterday confirming its 205p-a-share offer. This values the supermarket chain at £1.12bn.

The Livingstone team originally indicated it could offer 190p a share. Somerfield is now expected to provide further information to both consortiums, in the hope of extracting a firm offer in the next eight weeks, the newspaper said.