Britain's third largest grocer has been at the centre of takeover speculation for over a month, with private equity investor CVC and its backers given until April 13 by the City's Takeover Panel to make a formal bid.
It is understood that CVC had hoped to make a bid this week, but that this is now unlikely because of protracted negotiations with Sainsbury's board of trustees over the grocer's estimated£477 million pension deficit.
According to The Times, Hampton said that he would be prepared to ask the Takeover Panel to extend the April 13 deadline 'as long as they were not wasting our time'. However, it is unclear how far Hampton would be willing to allow the 'put up or shut up' deadline to be pushed back.
It has also emerged this week that there are three parties interested in bidding for Sainsbury's. In addition to the CVC-led group, there is one led by Bain Capital and a 'mystery third party', according to Seymour Pierce analyst Richard Ratner.
He added that he now felt that 'an offer is more likely to be forthcoming than we had previously [expected]'. This was because of the wider interest that Sainsbury's appeared to be attracting.
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