pseudo3d wrote:Cerberus is a private equity group. Hedge funds want to provide high investment returns as quickly as possible, which is death to retail stores as they attempt to divest things like property (which Sears and Haggen did). Private equity groups want to focus on long-term potential, which is the goal of something like Albertsons. They are easy to get confused, though, especially given how Albertsons LLC closed or otherwise sold about 70% of the stores they acquired.arizonaguy wrote:Albertsons/Safeway is owned by a hedge fund.pseudo3d wrote: I think that definitely Safeway had "real value", not so much in the stores themselves but a base to build a chain off of (back office support, brand names, manufacturing plants). United did too...as far as I know, a lot of that has been left alone (including décor packages). I don't know too much about the reopening of Haggen stores, but that and the acquisition of some A&P stores have been the only "acquisitions" that have happened so far. Paul's Market and Haggen haven't even been official yet, and as for the former, the name won't be kept.
A&P had a lot of problems. The unions made demands some buyers might have found unreasonable, and a lot of their stores were in really bad shape. There's a reason no company wanted A&P wholesale in the last 10 years. Heck, even Kroger was interested in buying Winn-Dixie prior to their 2005 bankruptcy!
Albertsons in areas outside of the West has never been close to a monopoly. Most of the stores built under the original Albertsons Inc. died off several years ago.
During the collapse of the Southwest division, there were a lot of questions regarding Haggen and Comvest that never went answered before Albertsons reappeared to buy back the stores. Hedge funds do destroy stores, just like at Sears and Kmart.
In reality Albertsons isn't buying anything. Cerberus (the hedge fund is) and placing control of the supermarket assets it acquires under the Albertsons umbrella.
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers ... y-fund.asp
Yes, they are supposed to operate that way.
Ron Perlman has a private equity company (yes?) that raided all the assets (hidden paper assets as well) of Pantry Pride and made a ton of money which he used to buy Revlon Cosmetics. There was no long term strategy in his head on this one.
