Sainsbury’s sees sales fall in UK

Sainsbury’s, reeling from last week’s decision by the UK regulator to block its takeover of rival Asda, was alone among Britain’s big four supermarket groups in seeing sales fall in the latest 12-week period, industry data has shown.

Sainsbury’s wanted to buy Walmart-owned Asda to boost its scale and buying power, as well as to compete better with market leader Tesco and fast-growing German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl.