pseudo3d wrote: ↑April 13th, 2024, 12:21 pm
More evidence in Oregon was "fierce competition" between Fred Meyer and Safeway.
FTC needs to come down with the hammer on divestments, lose Fred Meyer and the other Fred Meyer banners or lose Albertsons (and give them stores in WA/OR).
Who in the heck do you think would be able to operate Fred Meyer?
Divestment = Store Closure
That is the crux of the issue. It should not be, but apparently that is the plan as these emails are revealing in the court cases. The best competition for Kroger at this point is Albertsons, as any other company would be smaller and less capable of pushing them to compete.
There is no other viable competitor in the PNW who can take over these stores if divested.
Thus a buyer like C&S who has proven they can't be trusted to keep the stores open is a problem.
Assume that every single store divested at this point is going to close within one year maximum as long as C&S is the buyer.
Assume C&S is only going to sell to mom and pop operators because the price they would charge real competitors, like Stater in SoCal, would be too high based on the price they're paying per store.
C&S is buying to sell. Whatever they buy they will either have a independent, inept and unlikely to succeed operator lined up to acquire at their cost plus a contract to use C&S as their supplier. Anything they don't have a buyer lined up for is going to be liquidated immediately at a profit based on the inventory and purchase price. C&S does not deny that they don't intend to keep the stores open, despite the PR lies from Kroger and Albertsons that C&S is going to create a robust, agile new competitor so the customer has the same choices they have now. Come on, why spend $25 billion dollars to maintain the status quo when you can spend nothing and have the same. Of course it's all a lie, and C&S is their store closure/liquidator partner not a divestiture partner.
Therefore if you think more divestitures are needed then you are advocating for even less competition, even higher prices, and even fewer choices as every damn store divested will close.
There is no remedy for this merger that can be achieved through divestiture except some parts of SoCal, and that's only if C&S is not the buyer.