���˿���

In the globalised world, there are three big sources of cash for corporate takeovers: Russian oligarchs’ money, Middle Eastern oil revenues, and private-equity funds.

has been encountering two out of three.

Earlier this month a consortium of three of the world’s biggest private equity groups retreated from an attempt to buy the supermarket group for around £9.3bn.

And this morning an investment company called Three Delta, which looks after funds for the gulf state of Qatar, spent a touch over £1.4bn buying 15 per cent of Sainsbury.

What Three Delta apparently likes about Sainsbury is all its lovely property, worth somewhere between £8bn and £9bn.

But the conspiracy theorists also believe that Three Delta will join forces with Robert Tchenguiz, the property tycoon, who owns 5 per cent of Sainsbury.

The support for that theory is that Three Delta’s founder and head, Paul Taylor, used to be the lieutenant to Robert Tchenguiz and his brother Vincent, as chief executive of their private businesses, .

However Taylor has told Sainsbury that he is doing his own thing and is not in cahoots with Tchenguiz – which is certainly plausible, in that former lieutenants frequently like to manifest their independence from their former employers.

That said, the modus operandi of Three Delta is to focus on “asset-backed business acquisitions and direct real estate opportunities” – or at least, that’s its official blurb. So it’s bound to want Sainsbury to shine the brightest possible light on the value of its freehold estate.

Robert Tchenguiz wants more than a bright light. He and his advisors from the giant US bank recently gave a presentation to Sainsbury’s board in which they made the case for Sainsbury being split into two distinct companies. One company would be the operator of the supermarkets. The other would be a tax-efficient property business (a real estate investment trust, or REIT), which would own Sainsbury's properties.

Sainsbury's board believes such a break up would be too risky. It fears that the demerged operator of the supermarkets – know as an opco in the jargon – could be too strapped for cash if forced to pay rent to the new separated property company.

Opposition to a radical demerger also comes from the two Sainsbury peers (John and David Sainsbury), their spouses and children, who control 14 ½ per cent of the shares.

So the poor Sainsbury board is stuck in the middle. It doesn’t believe that Three Delta will support Robert Tchenguiz’s break up, but can’t be certain.

Sainsbury’s directors will strive to come up with a compromise, which would probably involve borrowing against the security of the property and returning cash to shareholders.

Either way, Sainsbury does not look like a stable company at the moment, in the sense that the interests and ambitions of assorted owners and managers seem miles apart.

That’s not healthy for a big business in a highly competitive market which is only mid-way through a recovery programme.

Since Three Delta has indicated to Sainsbury that it is a supportive long-term holder, perhaps it could buy Robert Tchenguiz’s stake and bring a little more cohesion to the ownership of the company.