|Fifth largest UK supermarket chain, turnover £3.9bn.
||£2.9bn at the time of the all-share offer but now worth about £2.5bn. The only firm bid so far but no longer Safeway's preferred choice.
||5% now, 15% if combined.
||The two combined would be the UK's third largest supermarket group and the biggest chain in north-east England and Yorkshire, with market shares of 29% and 31% respectively.
|UK number two supermarket chain, turnover £18.2bn.
||Expected bid: £3.2bn in cash and shares.
||17.2% now, 27.2% if combined.
||Combination would be over limit of 25%. Sainsbury is willing to shed 90 stores.
|The third-ranked UK player, turnover at US parent Wal-Mart £150bn.
||Wal-Mart has the biggest financial muscle of all the potential bidders and could comfortably fund a £4bn all-cash bid.
||16.6% now, 26.6% if combined.
||Wal-Mart said it might have to sell some of its UK stores to get the deal cleared by regulators.
|US buyout firm.
||Expected bid: £3bn mainly in cash.
||KKR will probably break up Safeway and sell off chunks to other players.
||It will wait until the Competition Commission has blocked one or more of the rival offers before moving in.
|Tycoon owner of BHS, Top Shop and Dorothy Perkins.
||Expected bid: £2.9bn in cash.
||Adding Safeway to his existing assets would give Mr Green more than 3,000 stores on the High Street.
||Probably none, as it would be Mr Green's first move into food retailing.
|The UK's biggest supermarket chain, turnover £26bn.
||Expected bid: cash and shares.
||27% now, 37% if combined.
||A combined Tesco/Safeway would control about a third of the market, taking into account Tesco's projection that about a quarter of Safeway stores would have to be sold.