Turkey's Anadolu Group has offered to buy a 40.25 per cent stake in supermarket chain Migros, marking a new growth area for the conglomerate.

Migros said in a statement to the Istanbul stock exchange that Anadolu had offered private equity group BC Partners 26 lira ($11.44) per share. This is a premium of 36 per cent to Migros closing share price on Thursday, giving it a market capitalisation of 3.4 billion Turkish lira ($1.5 billion).

Anadolu Group has interests from finance and automotive to beverages, but so far has had no assets in food retail.

'We see Migros as a business which could grow our business in Turkey and in countries in the region. This initiative should be read as a strategy to grow in a new sector,' Anadolu Group chairman Tuncay Ozilhan said.

Both sides had started exclusive talks, Migros said, adding that if the deal reached a conclusion both Anadolu and BC would have equal control of Migros. The offer was made by Anadolu Industry, the group's holding company.

London-based BC Partners, which owns about 80 per cent of Migros, has been in informal talks to sell the chain for years but a slowdown in the Turkish economy and a fall in value of the lira against the dollar made a deal difficult.

BC Partners bought Migros in 2008 for $3.25 billion with the help of Turkish buyout firm Turkven and Italy's DeA Capital , beating a bid by larger rival Blackstone and Croatian food group Agrokor.-Reuters