Response to Statement

Sainsbury(J) PLC
11 April 2007


11 April 2007


  Response to Statement from CVC Capital Partners (CVC), The Blackstone Group
        International Limited (Blackstone) and Texas Pacific Group (TPG)


J Sainsbury plc has noted the decision today by the consortium comprising CVC,
Blackstone and TPG not to proceed with an offer for the share capital of
Sainsbury's.

The consortium announced on 2 February that it was in the preliminary stages of
assessing Sainsbury's.  Following this announcement, the consortium made a
number of proposals to the Board, all of which were subject to certain
pre-conditions.  The key pre-conditions were outside the control of the Board
and related to the consortium's proposed financing structure.  The Board
explored with the consortium whether the key pre-conditions attached to the
proposals were capable of being satisfied or could be revised, but the
consortium concluded that this was not possible.  As a result, the consortium
decided to cease discussions.

The company is delivering an improving performance with a strong management team
and its recovery is already well established.  This has been further
demonstrated in the recent trading update for the 12 weeks to 24 March 2007
where like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, were up 5.9 per cent, resulting in
the ninth consecutive quarter of like-for-like sales growth.

Looking forward the Board believes that Sainsbury's has great potential and it
is committed to completing its Making Sainsbury's Great Again recovery plan.

Sainsbury's will report its Preliminary results on 16 May 2007.


Enquiries:

Investor Relations                              Media
Elliot Jordan                                   Pip Wood
[phone]                            [phone]


Notes
     
(1)  Certain statements made in this announcement are forward looking 
     statements.  Such statements are based on current expectations and are 
     subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual 
     results to differ materially from any expected future events or results 
     referred to in these forward looking statements.



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange              KMZGNZM