Sainsbury's profit rise driven by cost savings

LONDON (Reuters) - Sainsbury's , Britain's second biggest supermarket group that has agreed to take over smaller rival Asda, beat forecasts with a 20 percent increase in first half profit, with little growth in the core grocery business bolstered by cost savings. The group said on Thursday it made an underlying pretax profit of 302 million pounds in the 28 weeks to Sept. 22 - ahead of analysts' average forecast of 280 million pounds and 251 million pounds made in the same period last..