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J Sainsbury Plc Chief Executive Officer Mike Coupe is stepping down and will be succeeded at the helm of the U.K. grocer by retail head Simon Roberts.

The move comes less than a year after the collapse of a planned purchase of Walmart Inc.’s Asda, as Sainsbury and other British supermarkets struggle with fierce price competition from discounters and a shift to online shopping.

Roberts, 48, joined Sainsbury as retail and operations director in July 2017 and previously worked at Marks & Spencer Group Plc. Coupe, 59, has been CEO for almost six years and will continue in the role until May, when he’ll retire.

On Tuesday, Coupe told employees that Sainsbury would cut hundreds of management jobs as part of a plan to merge the commercial, retail, finance, digital, technology and human resource teams of the Sainsbury supermarket and Argos electrical chains.

British grocers, including Tesco Plc, Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc and Asda, have cut thousands of jobs during the past few years in a bid to become more efficient and face competition with German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Pfanner in London at epfanner1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net

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