Kroger acquiring Albertsons for $24.6 bil. to create new grocery giant

[TheFugitive]

Kroger is acquiring the Albertsons chain for $24.6 billion.  The merger will create a new national mega-grocery chain.

https://www.thestreet.com/video/kroger-albertsons-merge-25-billion-deal

The combined chain will have around 5,000 stores and annual revenues of more than $210 billion.

Won't impact me though, not anytime soon.  Albertsons never had stores in Pittsburgh and Kroger pulled out of the market after a labor dispute in 1985.

[EddieJ1984]

Acme is the only stores of the brands (Albertsons) around where I am, so I imagine Acme's will stay intact.
I would like to hope perhaps their prices will lower since they have the highest prices of the regular supermarkets around here, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[AmesNewington]

Connecticut won't see much from this. As for Albertson's owned stores, Acme is in Fairfield county after it purchased the remaining A&P stores in 2015 when the company ceased operations. The state used to have Shaw's, but they left in 2010. They also have a few Save A Lot stores, but several have closed throughout the years. Kroger never entered Connecticut, so I don't see the new company expanding further here other than those few Acme stores.

[BillyGr]

Connecticut won't see much from this. As for Albertson's owned stores, Acme is in Fairfield county after it purchased the remaining A&P stores in 2015 when the company ceased operations. The state used to have Shaw's, but they left in 2010. They also have a few Save A Lot stores, but several have closed throughout the years. Kroger never entered Connecticut, so I don't see the new company expanding further here other than those few Acme stores.

All depends on what they think makes sense - it could be logical to build (or buy) other stores to basically "connect" the Acme presence in CT with Shaw's in the rest of the New England states.

No idea if the family involved would ever want to sell, but a smaller chain like Big Y kind of covers a good amount of that area in both CT and western parts of MA where Shaw's is also not present.

Same would go for the combination of Price Chopper and Tops that covers a good part of NY State that neither Kroger nor Albertsons has stores in, but also brings along some overlap that would have to be figured out.

[TheFugitive]

Attorneys General in four states are suing to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger on antitrust grounds.  They argue that the huge chain would be a near-monopoly that would be bad for both consumers and suppliers.

https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/market-news/kroger-albertsons-merger-shareholder-payout-lawsuit-legal-pushback

[TheFugitive]

A consumer-driven lawsuit has been filed attempting to stop this merger.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/grocery-consumers-sue-to-block-krogers-25-billion-buy-of-albertsons_5033130.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport

[TheFugitive]

The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block the merger between Kroger and Albertsons, stating that it is anticompetitive and would drive-up grocery prices for consumers.

https://www.aol.com/us-government-sues-block-kroger-170023690.html