Musgrave Group PLC reported earnings results for the year ended December 2008. Despite a 5% rise in revenues last year to €4.8 billion, pre-tax profits at SuperValu and Centra owners, fell 20% last year. In the year to the end of December last, pre-tax profits fell to €75.5 million, a €15 million decline on 2007 as it invested heavily in new stores and cut its prices. Centra retailers saw sales growth of 9.3% to €1.5 billion, while SuperValu sales rose 3.4% to €2.3 billion. Sales in its cash and carry business on the island of Ireland were flat. In the UK, Musgraves owns Budgens and Londis and during 2008 sales in its Budgens stores jumped by 44.5% to €630 million while Londis saw sales of €1.6 billion. In the Six Counties, the company announced that the combined sales of SuperValu retailers grew by 8.1% to €230 million, while Centra sales were up11.6% to €223 million and Mace sales amounted to €204 million.

Musgrave Group PLC announced that it is looking for 20 forced redundancies, and asked some employees to take a pay freeze and will not be renewing contracts for all temporary workers. The company plans to meet with staff again in four to six weeks to give a further update on any more plans they intend to implement in order to cope with the downturn. The company said it is not ruling anything in or out when it comes to this meeting.

Irish Times reported that six parties have expressed interest in the acquisition of Superquinn. The report stated that potential bidders, includes Asda Group Ltd, J Sainsbury Plc, Musgrave Group Plc and BWG Group Plc. Asda, Musgrave and J Sainsbury denied commenting on the report. Simon Burke, Executive Chairman of Superquinn said: “At no time have the owners of Superquinn put the business up for sale or contemplated doing so. If someone knocks on your door and says they'd really love to buy your house and would be prepared to pay you very generously, I think most of us would at least continue the conversation to find out how much they have in mind. To be honest we're not doing much more than that.”