Retail Watchers

We've pretty much hijacked the thread ... moderators, I understand if you tell us to knock it off. But it's been an interesting conversation and there has been some good perspective on here. StoreWanderer, to kind of answer your question: Part of the problem for First Republic is that they had made ...

Storewanderer, I usually really like what you write on here, but need to clarify some of the issues on banks for you. When banks fail, there isn't time for public comment. No chance. By the time you get through any kind of public comment, the situation will have gotten worse -- depositors will have ...

Post Kroger, they will bring back the Smith's Food and Drug brand in markets where it is remembered with particular fondness, like Cody, Wyoming; Butte, Montana; and Billings, Montana.

How is a company with $4.5bn of EBITDA borrowing an additional $4bn to go from $14bn of debt to $18bn of debt going to lead to a fire sale? It's like a person that makes $100K who has a $250K mortgage taking out a $50K second mortgage. The dividend is maybe a bit aggressive but not "reckless&qu...

I've been seeing those ads on KGW in Central Oregon (via a translator). They are paying a lot of money to reach a lot of people who are many hours from a Roth's store. The Portland TV market stretches from Astoria to Baker City and from Albany to north of Vancouver. They are getting as far down the ...

There is currently $14bn of debt against $5bn of EBITDA (round numbers per Yahoo! Finance) -- leverage ratio of 2.8. If they borrow another $4bn, leverage ratio moves to 3.6. The leverage ratio would probably need to be in the neighborhood of close to twice that to create legitimate bankruptcy risk,...

ArizonaGuy, no bankruptcy judge in the country is going to allow Albertsons to declare bankruptcy. They are profitable and their balance sheet is nowhere near bankruptcy-grade. And Albertsons' owners would be insane to try to put this company into bankruptcy and risk incinerating billions of dollars...

I saw a similar approach at the Twain Vons (former Mervyn's) in Las Vegas almost a year ago. That store is massive, so they had plenty of room to do this ... the store-within-a-store was in the middle. Obviously very inconvenient to have to wait in two lines, check out twice, etc. Could also affect ...

Coos Bay/North Bend seems to have had a rough time with chain retailers lately. Macy's and JC Penney both left. The Albertsons closed under SuperValu. Rite Aid is leaving. The Fred Meyer store is probably in the worst condition of any store in the chain -- certainly the worst condition of any Fred M...

I found a Website that shows yearly Safeway stock prices from 1991 to 2015. It looks like the prices are split adjusted. According to that site, Safeway started 1991 at $12.25, then sold to Alby's at $34.92 in 2015. So the stock came close to tripling over 25 years. Not amazing, but not bad, especia...