Blacks Leisure & Walmart, joining up bigger dots?

An article in The Telegraph indicates that Home Retail Group (Argos & Homebase) had considered bidding for Blacks Leisure.

This was probably seen as a way for Home Retail to expand through acquisition, thereby warding off predators…i.e. Asda taking over Argos

Viewing this in a more global way, some of the bigger dots begin to join up:

• Asda is underperforming vs Walmart on ROCE and Net Margin, thereby diluting the company’s global performance
• Asda need to scale up significantly in order to match Walmart’s performance
• Acquisition of another grocer (JS/Morrisons) is ruled out by competition legislation
• Organic growth is limited by planning legislation
• This leaves moves into non-food, i.e. by acquisition of Home Retail
• ….. with access to Blacks Leisure (& Millets) a bonus morsel?

Time for suppliers to check out possible prices and terms disparities, just-in-case?