Morrisons is just the start – get ready for a private equity feeding frenzy

The bid to buy the Morrisons supermarket chain is the latest example of UK listed companies being snapped up by private equity groups. It won’t be the last, says John Stepek – we could well see a feeding frenzy before this is all over.

Morrisons Supermarket
Morrisons’ management says he deal “significantly undervalues” the supermarket chain
(Image credit: © Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The share price of Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, Morrisons, rocketed this morning. At the time of writing it was up by more than 30%.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.