ClownLoach wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2023, 10:04 amThey have already publicly stated that they are working together on a divest strategy. Collusion is working together behind the scenes and isn't legal. By acknowledging that they are working together publicly the legalities are ironed out. I also was in a retail company that executed a merger acquiring a direct competitor about 5 years ago. I had no idea what was going on until it was announced and I was a corporate director. When it was made public they had already worked out everything from DCs to stores being kept or closed to buyers & DMs coming on board and market/district realignments. Both were public companies. Nobody from the FTC showed up and we learned that these details were being worked out for almost 6 months before it was announced. So there clearly is a difference today in how these retail mergers play out; there must be some sort of "playbook" of what can be done and what can't. The only public acknowledgements in advance were that our company was "seeking strategic alternatives to grow the business" so that may be all that is necessary to allow for behind the scenes discussions, opening the books, etc. if it is only to forward a "strategic alternative" transaction. Regulations aren't as strong as they used to be.
The airline comparison is a bit different as that is a industry that is intensely regulated and usually when mergers are "closed" it takes years before the two companies even begin integration. Retail is probably closer to banking and even less regulated. My bank is in a merger right now and they have a very drawn out specific calendar of integration which I know is filed with the SEC and FDIC yet they are already way ahead and have even replaced the ATMs months early at some of the branches and they're operating the acquiring banks name, software and the receipt doesn't even show the acquired banks name anymore.
No merger is a "done deal" until regulatories have signed off -- and that's especially true with Kroger-Albertsons, in which there's a reasonable chance the government will block it. This forum (not saying or addressing this to you) sometimes cherry picks narratives members most align with and run them as facts... the main merger thread is a great example, in which some members where adamant about early misinformation being definitive facts. Right now, this forum is accepting the narrative (from some pundits) that Kroger is confident it can pull the merger off with around 200 store divestures... while completing ignoring some of the industry's leading analysts, who believe 600+ stores will need to be divested for the Biden Administration to sign off on it.
Until the merger is approved, it'd be unlawful for Kroger & Albertsons to coordinate in any fashion. Yes, both companies have assigned staff to a merger / integration team -> this is normal, but these employees have signed NDAs and do not work with the day-to-day operations. (When mergers fail - for whatever reason - it's pretty common for lawsuits to be filed, with one party accusing the other of using the information--remember, NDA--it obtained during the merger/ integration process for competitive position).
Integration can happen slowly. After your bank agreed to a merger/ acquisition, it would've released information to its customers about the transaction. But integration wouldn't have happened until after the merger was approved. US Bank, for example, completed its acquisition of Union Bank on December 1st and began allowing the combined customer base to use eithers' ATM network that day... but it'll take 6 months to migrate accounts (Union -> US Bank) and up to a year to rebrand branches (some of which will presumably close). You can even open up a Union Bank account through April. That's pretty slow for a bank merger -- PNC Bank, for example, pulled off a larger merger with BBVA less than two years earlier, cut off openings of BBVA accounts the day the merger closed and had migrated BBVA to PNC (accounts, rebrands, etc.) in 90 days.
And it took Albertsons 2-3 years to synergize product line-ups and even sales circulars between it and Vons (as recently as 2018, Albertsons was still doing Fab 5 whereas Vons was doing something 4 ... most everything else was the same by that point).