Sainsbury’s and Morrisons held merger talks earlier this year, reports say

Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second-largest supermarket chain, held preliminary talks with rival Morrisons about a multibillion-pound merger earlier this year, but walked away. The deal would have created a supermarket with a 23.6% market share, still behind Tesco’s 27.8%. The talks were described as the biggest potential shake-up of the UK grocery market in decades.