Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

[ClownLoach]

Today, I saw an Albertsons truck on the freeway, just Albertsons, with no other banners, but with some fruit graphics. No other words on the trailer. The back of the trailer said Introducing: Albertsons. This is in SoCal division.
This tells me that the Albertsons banner is going to be formally separated from ACI/Kroger and divested to Save Mart/SpinCo.

I think that if that was the case it would be the first go-to for Kroger on the defense (and besides, why would they have a truck out this early?) and besides, Albertsons is already quite familiar in the West Coast.

Rather, I think that you either missed something or it's an old trailer back from when Albertsons was rebranding other chains because everyone knows Albertsons and they can't just roll in and claim that they're a new supermarket in town and better that the competition.

I saw a similar trailer several years ago in Irvine near the DC. They hastily covered up Sav-On branding. Decal with fruit graphics covered "-Sav-On". This old trailer is from when they were trying to call out the Albertsons-Sav-On branding for the pharmacy. For quite some time after the Lucky merger nearly all the Albertsons trucks in the area had that Albertsons-Sav-On word mark. The only news here is the continued process of killing the Sav-On name. They just pulled the Sav-On sign down from another store last week, Tustin on Newport Blvd. I can't help but wonder if there is an expiring rights deal or something on the Sav-On branding? Maybe it was licensed but remained CVS property after the acquisition? I wouldn't know what the status of the Osco branding is. Are they rebranding Jewel-Osco locations to just Jewel as well?

They also had a few really idiotic "Albertsons New Zero Emissions Trailer" decals at one point in time. Of course the trailer is zero emission! What kind of clown came up with that? (These weren't refrigerated trailers either)

I can't think of any market where they're currently adding the Albertsons brand. They continue to rebrand in the PNW to kill the Albertsons brand and use Safeway instead.

This is a broken record, but I do expect that in the unlikely event this merger in its current form isn't squashed by the FTC we will see some branding change movement in the SoCal and Arizona markets prior to divestitures. They have to solve the weird issues of areas I've called out before like very profitable and growing markets of North San Diego SR-76/78 Corridor cities, Southwest Riverside County (Elsinore, Murrieta, Temecula), and South Orange County. This is probably about a 50 store group in total that collectively is a top performer for the Albertsons nameplate. In each named market they are the dominant name and these are population growth markets that drive positive comp sales. If they intend to separate any banner then they'll have to gradually rebrand these markets as the go forward organization(s) would not want to lose these stores under any circumstances.

[retailfanmitchell019]

I saw a similar trailer several years ago in Irvine near the DC. They hastily covered up Sav-On branding. Decal with fruit graphics covered "-Sav-On". This old trailer is from when they were trying to call out the Albertsons-Sav-On branding for the pharmacy. For quite some time after the Lucky merger nearly all the Albertsons trucks in the area had that Albertsons-Sav-On word mark.

This trailer I saw looked new, had a modern font on the back for the word "introducing". No slogans on the trailer.

[HCal]

Today, I saw an Albertsons truck on the freeway, just Albertsons, with no other banners, but with some fruit graphics. No other words on the trailer. The back of the trailer said Introducing: Albertsons. This is in SoCal division.
This tells me that the Albertsons banner is going to be formally separated from ACI/Kroger and divested to Save Mart/SpinCo.

How exactly does seeing a trailer tell you that?

Kroger/Albertsons haven't even announced their divestment strategy yet, so it's highly unlikely that they are already making any changes of this nature.

I think you are reading far too much into this.

[storewanderer]

The zero emission trailers are a thing.
https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com ... it-streets

At least they are still on the road after 22 months.

[ClownLoach]

The zero emission trailers are a thing.
https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com ... it-streets

At least they are still on the road after 22 months.

These branded trailers weren't on electric tractors, and they weren't refrigerated either. Someone got very carried away with this branding.

[ClownLoach]

Today, I saw an Albertsons truck on the freeway, just Albertsons, with no other banners, but with some fruit graphics. No other words on the trailer. The back of the trailer said Introducing: Albertsons. This is in SoCal division.
This tells me that the Albertsons banner is going to be formally separated from ACI/Kroger and divested to Save Mart/SpinCo.

How exactly does seeing a trailer tell you that?

Kroger/Albertsons haven't even announced their divestment strategy yet, so it's highly unlikely that they are already making any changes of this nature.

I think you are reading far too much into this.

So I'm pretty well convinced that there are internal shenanigans going on between both companies on the real estate piece. But there is absolutely zero chance that something as mundane as trailer procurement and labeling would be in play for this merger. It takes a long time to order these trailers. My last company was rolling out some branded trailers with the logistics companies dedicated fleet and it took almost two years before the first branded trailer arrived after they were ordered. And that was well before COVID and all these shortages. So whatever you're looking at, if it is a physically new trailer, was ordered that way before this merger ever was a thought in anyone's head. That would be the kind of collusion that would get the whole thing squashed. It would be physical evidence of such dealings. If this is something new then I would bet there is something missing from this. Could be that they were going to add a decal for Fresh Pass as that's being relaunched right now. I definitely think you're reading too much into this. And I am 100% sure there were old "Introducing Albertsons Sav-On" trailers at the Irvine DC that got the Sav-On covered up.

[retailfanmitchell019]

More merger news:

A coalition of unions, organizations, think tanks, and politicians (one of them is Orange County-based US Rep. Katie Porter, who is running for Feinstein's Senate seat) has formed this website in opposition to the merger: https://www.nogrocerymerger.com/

The FTC is beginning oversight of the merger: https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail- ... ons-merger

Former House Speaker John Boehner (represented a Kroger-dominated congressional district) is becoming a Rodney McMullen puppet: https://thehill.com/lobbying/3891614-kr ... ga-merger/

And yes, SpinCo is likely to happen, assuming the merger isn't stopped in its tracks: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/a ... 023-03-14/

[ClownLoach]

This article from a few weeks ago adds a couple interesting wrinkles.

First, if more than 650 divestitures are required then Kroger backs out of the deal. (Not sure if that means they aren't responsible for the breakup fee either)
Second, it explicitly says that both Albertsons and Kroger owned stores could be divested. This is important because previous articles indicated only ACI stores would divest or spin.
Third, other articles have confirmed that Kroger states they will keep 100% of manufacturing plants, offices, and distribution centers with zero sales, spinoffs, or closures.

So this goes back to a lot of the original speculation, which is that they are working together on merger integration despite prior thought that they could not do so. It also means almost anything could be on the block for sale, and also confirms that the goal is to sell not spin. It could be all of ACI Nevada-Arizona for sale, which would make a lot of sense considering the overlap, but it could also be all of QFC in the PNW and/or Food4Less which still feels like an outlier in this combined organization. It's also now much more likely that we will see a fully surgical approach to the very problematic markets like SoCal where they are going to need a store by store approach and can't go by banners. But if they can win over one or two state AGs and union locals with a good proposal - they will come crashing down like dominoes and we will see their enemies become their proponents.

And it means that SpinCo is the last resort - and such an organization will not include any warehouses or manufacturing plants which pretty much guarantees that SpinCo would become Haggen 2.0 and sink immediately without adequate support structures in place. It means that SpinCo was never a viable solution and they knew it from the start. No warehouses, plants, DC's means SpinCo would be dead in the water as stores have to convert to local vendors, management gets established, companies like Unified or whoever have to be brought on for center store, etc. Why give away stores to ACI shareholders at a discount when they can potentially get more in cash from competitors?

https://boisedev.com/news/2023/02/20/al ... r-spinoff/

I believe based on the Reuters one liner and the ramp up of attacks on the merger we will see Kroger-Albertsons jointly release their first "trial balloon" divestiture list imminently, within the next week. This will be the "best case scenario" list with the lowest possible number of stores that are being placed up for sale. The intent will be to shift the conversation from the macro-level "We can't have any kind of merger anywhere!" discussion into more micro-scale discussions within cities, counties, states etc. which could evolve into a second list of additional divests that may satisfy certain parties. This type of discussion is similar to what we have here on this board where localized markets get discussed and they will hope to fracture the unified front against the merger by satisfying some officials with their actions. There may also be some announcement of early bids for blocks of stores.

Remember, these guys really want to get this deal done and they need to inject more discussion points in as a distraction. I am sure that Divest List v.1 is imminent.

[ClownLoach]

Today, I saw an Albertsons truck on the freeway, just Albertsons, with no other banners, but with some fruit graphics. No other words on the trailer. The back of the trailer said Introducing: Albertsons. This is in SoCal division.
This tells me that the Albertsons banner is going to be formally separated from ACI/Kroger and divested to Save Mart/SpinCo.

How exactly does seeing a trailer tell you that?

Kroger/Albertsons haven't even announced their divestment strategy yet, so it's highly unlikely that they are already making any changes of this nature.

I think you are reading far too much into this.

So I'm pretty well convinced that there are internal shenanigans going on between both companies on the real estate piece. But there is absolutely zero chance that something as mundane as trailer procurement and labeling would be in play for this merger. It takes a long time to order these trailers. My last company was rolling out some branded trailers with the logistics companies dedicated fleet and it took almost two years before the first branded trailer arrived after they were ordered. And that was well before COVID and all these shortages. So whatever you're looking at, if it is a physically new trailer, was ordered that way before this merger ever was a thought in anyone's head. That would be the kind of collusion that would get the whole thing squashed. It would be physical evidence of such dealings. If this is something new then I would bet there is something missing from this. Could be that they were going to add a decal for Fresh Pass as that's being relaunched right now. I definitely think you're reading too much into this. And I am 100% sure there were old "Introducing Albertsons Sav-On" trailers at the Irvine DC that got the Sav-On covered up.

Just to add onto this trailer thing, Kroger introduced the Fruit Cart 18 months ago and surely it was in development for some time prior. Ralphs in SoCal has been getting new electric red trailers with white lettering (the Ralphs logo is reversed, it's a white oval with red letters) and giant Fresh for Everyone tagline. These started rolling a year ago and they really stand out on the road. But until today none had a Fruit Cart. I just saw one of the red trailers that looked shiny and brand new without a scratch anywhere - it finally had a Fruit Cart next to the Ralphs logo. Just indicating again that it took nearly 18 months to get delivery of the first trailer with the new logo. There is no way that any new ACI truck/trailer reflects anything related to the merger. There is still a shortage of trucks and trailers on the road and extensive backorders for them. Walmart is using ocean shipping containers on chassis to deliver loads to stores during peak season due to the shortages out there.

[storewanderer]

This article:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/a ... 023-03-14/
The way I am reading this it sounds like they are going to self-divest stuff (sort of like how 7-Eleven and Speedway did).

This will be interesting.

I wonder if these will be like those Family Dollar Stores that got divested to "Dollar Express" in the Dollar Tree merger. A weird assortment of far flung stores with little concentration anywhere; from a couple stores in CA to a couple dozen stores in FL, and random stores in between. The sign said Family Dollar, they didn't run the Family Dollar ad, didn't accept Family Dollar loyalty (digital coupons), and they had different cash registers. They still got most of their merchandise from Family Dollar. The average customer had no clue they weren't a normal Family Dollar.

For these states that have AGs against the merger, I wonder if in those states, the states could refuse to transfer the liquor license on any "divested stores" that do not have FTC approval of divest at the time of the divest occurring. That could stop that in its tracks.