Qatar cuts Sainsbury's stake to end near two-decade reign as top shareholder

By Kanjyik Ghosh and Anousha Sakoui

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Qatar's sovereign wealth fund plans to reduce its stake in Britain's second-largest supermarket group Sainsbury's by nearly 4%, 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) per share in a secondary offering with JPMorgan as the sole bookrunner, according to the term sheet. Sainsbury's shares are up 23% this year and closed at 326 pence on Tuesday.

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

In October last year, the fund reduced its holding by about 5% 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% from the current 10.48%, according to LSEG data. The fund would drop to the fourth-largest shareholder from first place.

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%, has said that 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 capitalization of 7.44 billion pounds as of Tuesday's close.

($1 = 0.7570 pounds)

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona and Anousha Sakoui in London; Editing by Chris Reese and Lisa Shumaker)