>>> Waitrose was bid target for Amazon last year; John Lewis Partnership chairma

Waitrose was bid target for Amazon last year; John Lewis Partnership chairman says Amazon made no approach - report
07 MAY 2018
Amazon [NASDAQ:AMZN], a Seattle, Washington-based online retailer, tried to persuade the John Lewis Partnershipto enter talks about a potential sale of its Waitrose supermarket business last year, The Sunday Times reported. The newspaper cited an unspecified source who said a senior executive from Amazon contacted a John Lewis Partnership director and requested a formal meeting. However, the board “shut down” the approach, the source said.
The article did not give any financial details of the potential offer.
An insider cited by the newspaper said John Lewis Partnerships’ board should have given serious consideration to the proposed deal. The insider claimed that John Lewis’ chairman Charlie Mayfield had declined to discuss the matter.
The report quoted Mayfield, who said on Saturday, 5 May that Amazon had not made any approach to the John Lewis Partnership and that he did not expect such an approach.
The item later identified the senior executive as Amazon’s vice-president of special projects, Ajay Kavan, who was said to have held more than one “enormously informal” discussion with a John Lewis Partnership director in November 2017 about a potential deal.
Waitrose managing director Rob Collins, John Lewis department stores managing director Paula Nickolds, and group finance director Patrick Lewis are among the partnership's executives who were aware of Amazon’s interest, according to the newspaper.
Amazon launched its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery arm in the UK a couple of years ago and has since then been the subject of analysts’ speculation that it will try to acquire an established UK supermarket operator such as Wm Morrison [LON:MRW], J Sainsbury [LON:SBRY] or Waitrose, the item said.