Morrisons has announced that it has sold 114 of the smaller Safeway stores to rival supermarket chain Somerfield for £260.2 million.

Sixty-three of the stores are being bought directly, with the other 51 being bought by a property investment company owned jointly by Barclays Bank and the Iranian property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz.

These stores will then be leased back to Somerfield on a long term basis.

Analysts appear happy with the price Morrisons has managed to achieve, and have more concerns about Somerfield's ability to generate the necessary synergies from the new stores to make the acquisition worthwhile.

Somerfield, which also owns the Kwik Save chain, has recently described trading conditions as "tough".

The disposal will allow Morrisons to concentrate on running the larger stores that fit better with its business model and will assist in increasing the rate of conversion to the Morrisons format.

In its results on October 21, Morrisons announced that, on average, converted stores saw a 13 per cent uplift in sales. Maintaining this momentum will be key to the company's future success and maintaining the recent turn around in the share price.

Abbey National issued its last set of results before it is taken over by Banco Santander Central Hispano (SCH).

The company saw its share of the mortgage market fall from nine per cent to 8.6 per cent, and this has largely been blamed on the distraction of the Spanish company's bid.

In addition, its share of new mortgage lending fell from 6.1 per cent to 4.4 per cent.

The lack of a counterbid for Abbey has meant that it has not been drawn into a protracted bidding war that would have been more distracting than SCH's offer alone, and could have hit market share even further.

The company also described the UK mortgage market as "contracting" and this would fit with recent comments made by both other lenders and housebuilders.

Taylor Woodrow announced a marked fall in sales in its results on October 20.

In contrast, SCH's results, issued on the same day as Abbey's, were very impressive, showing a near doubling of profits.

This was partly achieved from the disposal of the stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, which was sold to avoid any competition issues with the Abbey takeover.

Looking forward analysts will be looking to see how soon Abbey makes a contribution to these profits and how many savings can be made from the closures of IT centres.

Any shareholders wanting to sell certificated holdings to avoid receiving shares in the Spanish company will have to do so very soon to allow time for the deal to settle before the takeover goes through on November 12.