🛒 Kroger-Albertsons Merger: National Impact

[ClownLoach]

Ah, you're forgetting something--Apollo. While I'm not sure if Apollo's plan is "sell Albertsons or take it private and rip it to shreds", I could see them buying the upscale stores and combining them with their Heritage Grocers Group.

In the case of ACME expanding via Stop & Shop, I have a feeling that it's very possible, but Apollo will probably buy it first, and flip the stores for a small profit, with any stores landing in Albertsons' hands a coincidence.

Hard no. Those upscale divisions of Albertsons would not work for this Heritage Grocers Group. There is no synergy between what Heritage already has and this would just be additional "no synergy" moves.

It's not for synergy, it's for profit. But with Haggen, Andronico's, and Kings/Balducci's numbering around 50 stores (Haggen and Kings taking up most of that) I'm not sure it would be worth it at that point.

The Stop & Shop drama could be worth a look. I think within a month they'll be news about Ahold Delhaize putting the chain on the sales block. Whether this means "private equity gets a hold of it", "Kroger's consolation prize", or "tear it to shreds", or any combination thereof, it WILL happen.

What would a offloading of problem Ahold-Delhaize assets to Kroger look like? I wonder if they would take that approach and abandon the fruitless attempt to close the ACI deal?

[pseudo3d]

Hard no. Those upscale divisions of Albertsons would not work for this Heritage Grocers Group. There is no synergy between what Heritage already has and this would just be additional "no synergy" moves.

It's not for synergy, it's for profit. But with Haggen, Andronico's, and Kings/Balducci's numbering around 50 stores (Haggen and Kings taking up most of that) I'm not sure it would be worth it at that point.

The Stop & Shop drama could be worth a look. I think within a month they'll be news about Ahold Delhaize putting the chain on the sales block. Whether this means "private equity gets a hold of it", "Kroger's consolation prize", or "tear it to shreds", or any combination thereof, it WILL happen.

What would a offloading of problem Ahold-Delhaize assets to Kroger look like? I wonder if they would take that approach and abandon the fruitless attempt to close the ACI deal?

Depends on what talks are like. The unions will be informed of an impending sale and they'll probably demand the new operators are also union. So it could be "Kroger and Albertsons break up, Kroger to buy Stop & Shop instead" in one fell swoop...or the merger getting called off and "Ahold Delhaize restructuring North American assets" goes up as separate news events.

Stop & Shop using C&S facilities and its deteriorating condition may be an impediment to Kroger, though.

[storewanderer]

At this point they've said they will fight the FTC... so they will just have to keep fighting I guess.

Obviously there are other acquisition opportunities out there that both parties are missing, due to this uncertainty.

Ahold minus Food Lion would have been a far better merger partner for Kroger than Albertsons also. The better Ahold stores are really a good fit with Kroger in my opinion. And I think Kroger could fix Stop & Shop the same way they fixed Pick N Save.

[pseudo3d]

At this point they've said they will fight the FTC... so they will just have to keep fighting I guess.

Obviously there are other acquisition opportunities out there that both parties are missing, due to this uncertainty.

Ahold minus Food Lion would have been a far better merger partner for Kroger than Albertsons also. The better Ahold stores are really a good fit with Kroger in my opinion. And I think Kroger could fix Stop & Shop the same way they fixed Pick N Save.

Have they actually filed a countersuit? It's been almost a month, and I know they cried about it, but I haven't seen anything on fighting the FTC's claims.

As for acquisitions, I haven't seen any good ones for either company. Maybe Giant Eagle for Albertsons if they divest the gas station business (which accounts for half of the company), and they probably should've considered SEG again after BI-LO vanished and before Aldi bought it...but they need to focus on core market areas and areas adjacent.

[ClownLoach]

At this point they've said they will fight the FTC... so they will just have to keep fighting I guess.

Obviously there are other acquisition opportunities out there that both parties are missing, due to this uncertainty.

Ahold minus Food Lion would have been a far better merger partner for Kroger than Albertsons also. The better Ahold stores are really a good fit with Kroger in my opinion. And I think Kroger could fix Stop & Shop the same way they fixed Pick N Save.

Have they actually filed a countersuit? It's been almost a month, and I know they cried about it, but I haven't seen anything on fighting the FTC's claims.

As for acquisitions, I haven't seen any good ones for either company. Maybe Giant Eagle for Albertsons if they divest the gas station business (which accounts for half of the company), and they probably should've considered SEG again after BI-LO vanished and before Aldi bought it...but they need to focus on core market areas and areas adjacent.

Without a countersuit they are basically just responding to FTC and Justice Dept requests. They're not behind the wheel driving the process of fighting it off. By just responding to their accusations they are not "fighting back" but rather just going along for the ride. It would be absolutely shocking if this passive response delivered any positive results. JetBlue and Spirit responded in a more aggressive way and it didn't work so their merger has already been called off. I think this is the swan song for Rodney and the company is just doing the least amount possible to still be able to say "we tried." It's obvious they're going their separate ways and we are already seeing the signs with Kroger resuming store development and Capex and Albertsons going lean on expenses to maximize value for their key shareholders of Apollo and Cerberus.

I'm also reading about and seeing signs of major changes at Amazon, it sounds like they've merged Fresh/Go/WFM internally to optimize their businesses and lower costs. I hadn't been in a WFM in a while and was rather surprised to see major price cuts all over the store undercutting all competition in one of the most expensive markets in the country, Santa Barbara. Amazon is, incredibly, signing more leases for Fresh stores even though they've abandoned so many built out sites. And they've addressed some major quality issues at WFM although Fresh is still a joke operation. Maybe they were lying low waiting for the merger noise to quiet so they could pounce?

[wnetmacman]

As for acquisitions, I haven't seen any good ones for either company. Maybe Giant Eagle for Albertsons if they divest the gas station business (which accounts for half of the company), and they probably should've considered SEG again after BI-LO vanished and before Aldi bought it...but they need to focus on core market areas and areas adjacent.

I can't see Albertsons going after Winn Dixie pre-Aldi for two reasons.

First, they've already failed in Florida, badly, and over a very long period of time. I truly believe the only way either Kroger or Albertsons enters Florida full force again is as a combined entity, because that's the only way they can compete against Publix.

Second reason is more practical; Albertsons didn't want to put that much money into the aging WD store fleet. Their average store is over 25 years old, with the vast majority not having seen any major equipment upgrades since before 2000. THey have visually upgraded, mind you, but not physically. I believe Kroger avoided them for the same reason.

[ClownLoach]

As for acquisitions, I haven't seen any good ones for either company. Maybe Giant Eagle for Albertsons if they divest the gas station business (which accounts for half of the company), and they probably should've considered SEG again after BI-LO vanished and before Aldi bought it...but they need to focus on core market areas and areas adjacent.

I can't see Albertsons going after Winn Dixie pre-Aldi for two reasons.

First, they've already failed in Florida, badly, and over a very long period of time. I truly believe the only way either Kroger or Albertsons enters Florida full force again is as a combined entity, because that's the only way they can compete against Publix.

Second reason is more practical; Albertsons didn't want to put that much money into the aging WD store fleet. Their average store is over 25 years old, with the vast majority not having seen any major equipment upgrades since before 2000. THey have visually upgraded, mind you, but not physically. I believe Kroger avoided them for the same reason.

People in Florida love their Publix, and they also love Walmart. That is a difficult one-two punch to fight. And Aldi was the best merger partner for WD simply because of their deep pockets. They will gladly spend the money to remodel to their format, and they're a strong enough tenant to be able to push the unwanted space back onto their landlords. Aldi will most likely create separate operating units and then once they've converted as many stores as they want to Aldi format they will spin off the remaining old WD operations in a format that puts them out of business rapidly while also offering a fat tax break for the "loss." WD needed deeper pockets than Albertsons or Kroger and they found them with Aldi.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Ahold minus Food Lion would have been a far better merger partner for Kroger than Albertsons also. The better Ahold stores are really a good fit with Kroger in my opinion. And I think Kroger could fix Stop & Shop the same way they fixed Pick N Save.

I assume Food Lion is non-union? If so, I'd think Aldi would buy Food Lion if Ahold were to divest its US operations.

Going up to New England, one factor is the future of Shaw's/Star Market. I suspect Wakefern/ShopRite would buy those. Shaw's is one of the weaker Albertsons divisions.

Albertsons' acquisition of Shaw's from Sainsbury was questionable- Shaw's wasn't fully integrated within Albertsons by the time Larry broke up the company in 2006. Shaw's stores were inconsistent, a mix of newer stores built in the 90s/early 2000s, and older Edwards/Grand Union units. Supervalu put Shaw's on the sale block many times, with no buyers.
Market Basket has been steamrolling Shaw's/Star around Greater Boston, and Hannaford has given Shaw's trouble north of there.

[pseudo3d]

I'm also reading about and seeing signs of major changes at Amazon, it sounds like they've merged Fresh/Go/WFM internally to optimize their businesses and lower costs. I hadn't been in a WFM in a while and was rather surprised to see major price cuts all over the store undercutting all competition in one of the most expensive markets in the country, Santa Barbara. Amazon is, incredibly, signing more leases for Fresh stores even though they've abandoned so many built out sites. And they've addressed some major quality issues at WFM although Fresh is still a joke operation. Maybe they were lying low waiting for the merger noise to quiet so they could pounce?

An Albertsons/Amazon combo could be pretty messy.

Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with Albertsons and Kroger merging and it could be a great idea if it were the year 1998 and neither of them consummated mergers that make it a huge problem.

But Amazon? Well, the Fresh stores aren't exactly WFM, and Fresh stores can't be flipped to Albertsons banners.

I can't see Albertsons going after Winn Dixie pre-Aldi for two reasons.

First, they've already failed in Florida, badly, and over a very long period of time. I truly believe the only way either Kroger or Albertsons enters Florida full force again is as a combined entity, because that's the only way they can compete against Publix.

Second reason is more practical; Albertsons didn't want to put that much money into the aging WD store fleet. Their average store is over 25 years old, with the vast majority not having seen any major equipment upgrades since before 2000. THey have visually upgraded, mind you, but not physically. I believe Kroger avoided them for the same reason.

The Florida Division was always an uphill battle, being not as cheap as Kash N Karry (and later Walmart), not as well-entrenched as Winn-Dixie, and not as nice as Publix. The stores weren't bad though, they sold to Publix at a premium.

Remodeling and renaming the Florida Albertsons stores as Safeway were a springboard to something that I don't know what, but they didn't even sign a new distribution deal, so it was doomed to fail either way.

I read somewhere that Kroger was interested in Winn-Dixie before their 2005 bankruptcy filing, and Kroger did come very close to buying out their entire Texas Division in 2000, which the FTC blocked. This would've strengthened their position in Dallas-Fort Worth (which was the main reason the FTC said no, even though Minyard, Tom Thumb, and Albertsons all existed in the market), and given them entrances into a variety of new markets, including Oklahoma, Waco-Temple-Killeen, North Texas (Abilene, Wichita Falls), and a few small scattered markets. And a lot of those stores were old and/or small, the Waco stores weren't in nice parts of town (all but one don't operate as supermarkets anymore, and the one that does is a Hispanic operator nowhere near main roads) and were all old Safeway-born stores.

Ahold minus Food Lion would have been a far better merger partner for Kroger than Albertsons also. The better Ahold stores are really a good fit with Kroger in my opinion. And I think Kroger could fix Stop & Shop the same way they fixed Pick N Save.

I assume Food Lion is non-union? If so, I'd think Aldi would buy Food Lion if Ahold were to divest its US operations.

Giant-PA and Hannaford also aren't union, the problem with Food Lion is their stores are small and not full-featured. They can also stand up on their own (over 1000 units) and have been improving in recent years.

[veteran+]

There were no problems with Albertsons in Florida. Everyone I visited were clean, modern, well staffed and well run.

The "problem" was they did not have enough stores to make a difference and for some reason would not build more stores. I think they would have taken W/D to the cleaners IF they had the will to do it.

I believe they would have easily bested Publix on price. The other "problem" was time ($$$$) to build critical mass.