Sainsbury confirms change of auditors

J SAINSBURY, the supermarket group, yesterday confirmed that it is to drop Clark Whitehill as auditors in favour of Coopers & Lybrand.

The change, which was predicted in the Independent on Sunday, will take effect for the year ending March 1996, although Coopers will be joint auditors with Clark Whitehill in the preceding year.

Clark Whitehill has been auditor to Sainsbury since about the beginning of the century. David Sainsbury, chairman, said the firm had provided 'high-quality professional advice throughout that period. However, we have had to make a decision that we have the appropriate advisers alongside us for our future development.'

A spokesman added that the group felt a firm with wider experience was more appropriate for Sainsbury in the 1990s. Clark Whitehill will, however, continue to provide advice on corporate and personal tax.

Sainsbury is Clark Whitehill's only FT-SE 100 client, and provided pounds 1.2m of fees in the year to last March. The loss will be a severe blow to the firm, which has already been rocked by the imprisonment of Nicholas Young, a London-based director of its international grouping, for swindling pounds 7.5m from investors. Sainsbury denied, however, that the change was related to that case.