Cardenas bought by Apollo

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ClownLoach
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Cardenas bought by Apollo

Post by ClownLoach »

The Apollo group is purchasing Cardenas just a few days after they bought Rio Ranch.

Based on how thoroughly they've destroyed their past investments like Sprouts and more recently Michaels I don't think this will end well. The major Hispanic market chains seem to run a much higher labor model than a conventional because of all the fresh perimeter departments. Apollo famously buys then slashes payroll to the bone. That is a recipe for disaster in these stores that have busy full service meat counters, taquerias, juice bars, bakeries, tortillerias, cevicherias, large hot bars, large salsa bars, and so on.

When Apollo finally divested their holdings in Sprouts they were listed as the 6th worst company to work for in America, and based on the frowns I see on the one cashier scheduled in the stores these days it doesn't seem like it has improved much although the self checkouts seem to work better than before. And Michaels has already become a shadow of itself - right now they have almost 1500 Management openings in a company that only has about 1200 stores - so it is such a bad place to work now that on average every store in their company is missing at least one manager and a quarter of the company is missing two or more Managers. I cannot find any other retail hiring site showing such a massive number of Management open positions and it looks like their Senior executives are running for the hills on LinkedIn.

Well at least once they're done ruining Cardenas maybe they'll sell the stores to Northgate Gonzalez or Vallarta as they both run mostly solid stores.

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/apollo ... ts/625411/
Last edited by ClownLoach on June 15th, 2022, 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
storewanderer
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Re: Cardenas bought by Apollo

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: June 15th, 2022, 11:09 pm The Apollo group is purchasing Cardenas just a few days after they bought Rio Ranch.

Based on how thoroughly they've destroyed their past investments like Sprouts and more recently Michaels I don't think this will end well.

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/apollo ... ts/625411/
Cardenas isn't a huge loss anyway in my opinion, I have not ever been overly impressed with them (nothing wrong with them... just not real impressed). They have those Las Vegas Stores that were Pro's Ranch and Pro's Ranch had a real nice store and yes they preserved it. I did a number of years ago have a complaint that I felt they handled very well and the person who responded to me from their main office at the time was very sharp.

But looking where it is at now, KKR owned it. Basically passing it from one investment owner to another. I'm sure Apollo will pass it along again soon too.

Hasn't Apollo been in and out of Smart & Final too?
ClownLoach
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Re: Cardenas bought by Apollo

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: June 15th, 2022, 11:15 pm
ClownLoach wrote: June 15th, 2022, 11:09 pm The Apollo group is purchasing Cardenas just a few days after they bought Rio Ranch.

Based on how thoroughly they've destroyed their past investments like Sprouts and more recently Michaels I don't think this will end well.

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/apollo ... ts/625411/
Cardenas isn't a huge loss anyway in my opinion, I have not ever been overly impressed with them (nothing wrong with them... just not real impressed). They have those Las Vegas Stores that were Pro's Ranch and Pro's Ranch had a real nice store and yes they preserved it. I did a number of years ago have a complaint that I felt they handled very well and the person who responded to me from their main office at the time was very sharp.

But looking where it is at now, KKR owned it. Basically passing it from one investment owner to another. I'm sure Apollo will pass it along again soon too.

Hasn't Apollo been in and out of Smart & Final too?
Yes. It seems like Apollo just randomly purchases companies without much thought and thinks they can squeeze more profit by cutting expenses especially payroll and management salaries/middle management. It backfires every time.

It seems that Apollo is the bottom of the barrel in hedge funds.
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Re: Cardenas bought by Apollo

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: June 15th, 2022, 11:30 pm

Yes. It seems like Apollo just randomly purchases companies without much thought and thinks they can squeeze more profit by cutting expenses especially payroll and management salaries/middle management. It backfires every time.

It seems that Apollo is the bottom of the barrel in hedge funds.
I'm glad they did not buy Save Mart. But I am guessing there is not much expense to cut over at Save Mart (given they went after the retiree health benefits...)...

Now Raleys on the other hand, someone could really go in there and make some serious cuts to expenses... and spending mentality in general... so it is a good thing Raleys has not been sold to one of these groups.
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