Safeway is cutting back its store opening programme.
It will open 12 this year compared with 17 last year and then 10 annually from then on.
The supermarket chain is to return £280m to investors through a share buyback. It reported underlying pretax profits for the year down from £375.2m to £350.1m on sales up from £7.49bn to £7.89bn.
The Times 13/05/99 page 33, page 34 (Tempus)
Financial Times 13/05/99 page 22 (Lex), page 23
The Daily Telegraph 13/05/99 page 36 (Questor), page 37
The Independent 13/05/99 page 21
The Guardian 13/05/99 page 25
