As per the information provided by a new study, in order to receive approval for the merger of Sainsbury with Asda, 73 or more supermarkets will have to be sold. Also, most of the stores facing the risk of being sold off are located in North-West and South-East regions of England.

After the merger of these two, the resulting entity will be the largest supermarket group in the entire United Kingdom in terms of share in market.

The regulator for all such deals, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), is in charge of making sure that the companies do not become more influential than a level and do not pose any dangers for the customers. CMA is currently carefully investigating this deal, which is reportedly valued at $15 billion. In a scenario that CMA provides a go-ahead to this merger, both the groups will have to sell off several stores. Though, guessing how CMA is going to examine this huge a deal is not an easy job.

The founder of Maximize UK, David Haywood, who is well-versed in the process of picking up the most appropriate locations for stores, stated that there has not been a merger of this scale in the field of retail in more than 10 years. He believes that the number of supermarket stores facing the danger is 6% or more, which comes to 73 stores. Notably, David was also a part of the previous important merger of Morrisons and Safeway in the year of 2004.

David also highlighted that one of the major points of interest will be regarding the operation of the major supermarkets of Sainsbury and Asda on local levels and their intersection. He added that the major concern of CMA will be about whether the deal brings down the count of competing brands in nearby areas.