Retail

Sainsbury's board to recommend £10.6 billion takeover offer from Qatar

The board of supermarket giant J Sainsbury is set to recommend a revised takeover offer from Delta Two, the Qatari-backed investment fund. It is believed that Delta Two has also won the backing of the Sainsbury's pension fund trustees, who had been concerned that the deficit in the fund would not be plugged in the event of a leveraged takeover of the retailer. The scheme has 85,000 members and £4.25 billion of funds under management. At the end of the last financial year, it reported a deficit of £100m.

Dubai spins success as textile trading hub

The UAE may have lost its status as a garment producer, but Dubai has gained as a hub for textile imports and re-exports. Dubai's imports of textiles and related materials grew at an average of 11 per cent per year between 2002 and 2006, while re-exports registered an average growth of 13.3 per cent during the same period, according to an Emirates Industrial Bank study.