LONDON-Somerfield, Britain's fifth largest supermarket chain, is in talks to buy 140 forecourt convenience stores from Texaco. "Somerfield today confirms that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Texaco Ltd, a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco Corp," the retailer said in a statement. "This is in line with the group's strategy of increasing its presence in the UK forecourts and convenience store sector."

The Texaco forecourt portfolio comprises mainly freehold properties. Somerfield officials revealed in the statement that the buyer, "expects that the transaction would involve the participation of a third-party property partner who would acquire, develop and lease the properties back to the company." The idea is to redevelop and rebrand the stores, which will then be leased back and operated by the retailer. Texaco will continue to provide the fuel.

No purchase price was given, but it is expected to be less than euro 144.6 million ($189 million), which will be offset largely by the sale/leaseback of the chain. When completed, the acquisition will give Somerfield a forecourt convenience-store portfolio of more than 170 stores.

A Texaco-Somerfield-developer deal would be the latest in a long line of corporate outsourcing. The first wave of deals between 1998 and 2001 involved the BBC and BT before the market went quiet. Then in 2003, Deutsche Bank became the first European corporate to outsource a pan-European portfolio, in a euro 1-billion ($1.9-billion) deal with Blackstone. Now the government in Northern Ireland, Cable & Wireless and Royal Bank of Scotland have commissioned consultants to draw up outsourcing proposals.

The potential European market for outsourcing is euros 60 billion ($78 billion) over the next three years, predicts property agency DTZ. They expect sale/leasebacks to dominate, and more than 60% of the deals are predicted to be in Germany, France, Italy and the UK.