The panel said Clayton, Dubilier & Rice bid 287 pence per share, beating private equity giant Fortress, which bid 286 pence, the panel announced in a short statement.

The winning bid values the company at about £7 billion (nearly US$9.5 billion, €8.2 billion), reports said.

Shareholders will have the final say later this month whether to accept the offer.

Morrisons, based in Bradford, northern England, began business as an egg and butter merchant in 1899, expanding to become Britain’s fourth-biggest supermarket by market share, after Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda.

The company, which employs more than 110,000 staff at nearly 500 stores across Britain, has been at the centre of a bidding war for several months.

The auction was held because neither Clayton, Dubilier & Rice or Softbank-owned Fortress lodged a final offer on their earlier bids.

In September, Morrisons posted a £54 million (US$74 million, €63 million) first-half loss after tax, blaming the knock-on effects of a global supply chain crisis and a lorry driver shortage sparked by Covid and worsened by Brexit.

That contrasted with a net profit of £70 million last year, when the sector had been boosted by panic buying in the early stages of the pandemic.