Albertsons IPO- no status

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pseudo3d
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:I am surprised Hy Vee picked up Tesco's clothing line. The good thing about Hy Vee is they will not beat a dead horse. If this does not work, the store management will communicate that up to headquarters fast and that stuff will be out of there in short order. Hy Vee's unique operating structure will not allow for a non-performing product line to be there for long.
Well, Hy-Vee, I believe, did extend the clothing line into a second store so either it must be performing okay or at least has picked up enough initial interest to be extended.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:
storewanderer wrote:I am surprised Hy Vee picked up Tesco's clothing line. The good thing about Hy Vee is they will not beat a dead horse. If this does not work, the store management will communicate that up to headquarters fast and that stuff will be out of there in short order. Hy Vee's unique operating structure will not allow for a non-performing product line to be there for long.
Well, Hy-Vee, I believe, did extend the clothing line into a second store so either it must be performing okay or at least has picked up enough initial interest to be extended.
It could also be an extension to see how it does at different stores. Doubtful it's about performance; most tests like this go to multiple stores because it could be a massive bomb at one, and successful elsewhere.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by GuyInARoom »

Will Albertsons table their IPO for another year with the market in flux?
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by storewanderer »

Last financial update was in May so I would expect we will see another in August...
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by storewanderer »

As expected the August Financial Update was quietly filed last week. $205 million loss last quarter (the three months ended June 2017). Same store sales down 2.1% and they say customer traffic fell 3.7%.

How long can this continue?

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... 18ds1a.htm


https://seekingalpha.com/article/410289 ... -price-war
pseudo3d
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by pseudo3d »

Someone has to be aware of the problems here. How are they losing this much money? Obviously the service issues are getting to be a problem, and they really can't afford to cut back labor in stores anymore than they are.

I guess a few things that can happen is:
1. With the exception of the NorCal, pull out of Pleasanton. The old Albertsons didn't have a bunch of people still hanging around in Pleasanton, if there are, time to move them to Arizona. This includes Lucerne Foods.
2. Don't drag trucks long distances. Outsource the stores in Houston, Louisiana, and Florida to third parties. Other candidates for DC closure would include Denver and Shaw's (does Shaw's need two?)
3. If the Lucerne Foods plants can't make enough volume by supplying its own stores or third-party labels, then those plants should be closed or sold.
4. Private label brands are meant to be more profitable and cheaper, and if you can't manage that, then start cutting off Signature and move back to SuperValu.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by storewanderer »

The debt is the biggest problem and had things gone as planned they would have IPOed by now to address that.

They are in a kind of tight spot. They want to keep growing however they possibly can and seem to be willing to buy things or put capital in strange places (Safeways in Florida? discount format stores in Salt Lake City?). Yet the existing operations are losing customer count. Prices are so messed up even with the decreases they've made it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done. In-store execution is very mixed.

I really think the Safeway purchase was a mistake. Safeway would have crashed and burned on its own and they could have picked up some pieces of it later on maybe in smaller batches and maybe improved those the same way they improved the previous Supervalu operations. Maybe having fewer better stores and being profitable is better than having more lousy ones and posting ongoing losses due to the debt payments from buying too many lousy stores.

I think we may even see the point where they split off the "good parts" and the "bad parts" of the company again... I wonder if they could IPO off the good parts, shift off a disproportionate amount of debt on the "bad parts" and let it just sail off...

They need a new strategy of operating better stores. Not buying every little store they can possibly find, even 40-50+ year old stores and setting up shop in them. Time to do things better, get smaller if necessary, and get profitable.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:The debt is the biggest problem and had things gone as planned they would have IPOed by now to address that.

They are in a kind of tight spot. They want to keep growing however they possibly can and seem to be willing to buy things or put capital in strange places (Safeways in Florida? discount format stores in Salt Lake City?). Yet the existing operations are losing customer count. Prices are so messed up even with the decreases they've made it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done. In-store execution is very mixed.

I really think the Safeway purchase was a mistake. Safeway would have crashed and burned on its own and they could have picked up some pieces of it later on maybe in smaller batches and maybe improved those the same way they improved the previous Supervalu operations. Maybe having fewer better stores and being profitable is better than having more lousy ones and posting ongoing losses due to the debt payments from buying too many lousy stores.

I think we may even see the point where they split off the "good parts" and the "bad parts" of the company again... I wonder if they could IPO off the good parts, shift off a disproportionate amount of debt on the "bad parts" and let it just sail off...

They need a new strategy of operating better stores. Not buying every little store they can possibly find, even 40-50+ year old stores and setting up shop in them. Time to do things better, get smaller if necessary, and get profitable.
Their biggest mistakes were letting the "tail wag the dog", basically adopting everything Safeway did--club card, merchandise mix, etc. to their stores with some mixed results to put it mildly instead of the other way around. Maybe Safeway in NorCal could've gone this way, it was what drove Albertsons out of NorCal to begin with, but the other divisions--South, Denver, the Pacific Northwest, not so much.

This is sort of tied to letting go of SuperValu too early...if they hadn't been so hasty to cut ties with SuperValu, they could've slowly bought the parts of NAI back that they didn't already re-purchase, perhaps eventually buying out the bulk of the company. This would've been better for the brands (once the full Safeway switchover happened, even items that were still branded to their store, like bread and water, vanished). That and the whole self checkout thing.

They still don't have to tear apart the company again, or even close divisions. Cure the poison that is Safeway and everything else should fall into place.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote:How long can this continue?
Until the next economic downturn or when interest rates rise, whichever happens first.

I know I sound like a broken record but they should sell some non-core assets to raise capital and get that debt down and then focus on growing their core markets, especially markets where they have the #1 market share.
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Re: Albertsons IPO- no status

Post by storewanderer »

I wonder if it is difficult to find a buyer for non core assets at this time based on valuations being potentially quite high and there not being a whole lot of potential suitors...

I feel like the grocery sector has already been having an economic downturn the past couple years with all of this deflation...
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