A day after a federal judge in Oregon refused to allow the $25 billion merger of retailers Kroger and Albertsons to proceed, the deal has gone south. Albertsons is no longer pursuing the merger and is instead suing Kroger for breach of contract.
There merger would have combined Kroger, which is the nation’s 5th largest retailer, with Albertsons, which is the 10th largest. The two wanted to combine so they could compete with Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and other major retailers. The Federal Trade Commission, under the Biden Administration, opposed the deal, as did labor unions and Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska.
“We have made the difficult decision to terminate the merger agreement,” Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran on Wednesday in a prepared statement. The company says now that Kroger failed to uphold its end of the deal by pursuing all avenues of getting regulatory approval for the merger from the Federal Trade Commission.
Kroger owns Fred Meyer multi-retailer chain, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fry’s, QFC, City Market, Owen’s, Jay C, Pay Less, Baker’s, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, Pick ‘n Save, and Metro Market. Albertsons owns Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Acme, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, and Haggen.
This is a win for Alaska consumers
How? Please be specific.
How So?
The only change would have been signs and labels on store shelves.
With all the lawyers being paid by the people we buy our groceries from , the administration has now contributed to making your groceries more expensive. Anyone that believes government interference in private enterprise in any way benefits the consumer, here is a news flash. Every time the government interferes with private enterprise, the consumer gets shafted. The Standard Oil debacle and the Ma Bell breakup are two huge indicators of what happens to the consumer when government attempts to screw with a perfectly good system.
Please make the case that we consumers didn’t benefi by avoiding a buyout of Kroger by Albertson’s, step by step for us simpletons. I’m not seeing your logic.
Working in healtcare in a town where there’s two major hospitals … one proposed a merger to decrease expenditures on expensive diagnostic equipment. Within ten years one bought out the other, and now they fight over staffing shortages. With groceries, in a place like AK without it’s own alternate sources, agreement to merge just means price fixing to me and figuring out which store brand is better. I’d be interested in the rationale behind why a merger would benefit the consumers.
Basic principle of contract law…the terms of the contract must be legal in intent.
When a judge, even a goofball judge, rules a merger illegal it’s kind of illogical to sue the defendant.
Just lawyers making more lawyer money.
This is in no way a win for Alaska consumers. The combined entity would still be much smaller than Wal-Mart and Costco, not to mention Amazon and would only raise prices at it’s own peril. The combined businesses costs would go down allowing them to be more competitive on price and offering more of a selection. Safeway runs a substandard business aside of Fred Meyers.
You would think so. This was the rationale for support of the merger of two rival hospital systems in a town where I lived. Duplicate CT scanners, ambulance services, labs, etc but then there was a power struggle with unequal partnership and one hospital bought out the other with the backing of the original network ownership of each hospital and then the cantankerous bickering only worsened until they separated again and the midtown state-of-art emergency room and nursing school had to close. So much waste to taxpayers that funded a significant part of the debacle. Just look at Albertsons suit against Kroger. With that amount of ill will, you’d know it’d never last and all the cost of wasted effort would be passed along to the customers.
I like Albertsons. Better than Safeway or Fred Meyer.
Miss the days when things were locally owned. Carrs did tremendous business and grew and added more stores in more locations around the state. Locally owned and operated. Back in the late 70’s & 80’s Carrs & Safeway were competitive. Then, Safeway purchased Carrs. Then Albertson’s bought or merged with Safeway. They’ve kept the Carrs name around, but it’s not the same.
ANTIFA directed this operation from Portland. they’ll be back soon, they hate the Donald. he’ll ramp it up and deport the whole lot. we want higher prices to make america great again.a employee locals to pick local crops, that’s the way my father did it.
grabbed off the farm to fight in WWII, after the war left the farm for a piloting job for 45 years. wasn’t fair, should have stayed on the farm. back to the good old days, except his was happy to switch jobs, have mobility and see all his kids live the American dream
more mergers, more employment, higher prices and less options. sounds great to me
It would have been good to mention in this article that Albertsons owns Safeway, who also owns Carrs.
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