Kroger acquiring Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion

[TheFugitive]

This is REALLY big news here in the Pittsburgh area.

Kroger has just announced that they are acquiring Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion.
This news comes as something of a shock here as Giant Eagle is such a well-established part of Pittsburgh and of our Yinzer culture.

Kroger operated stores here until 1985 when a strike by UFCW members convinced them to pull the plug and leave town.  They have since been operating stores 40-50 miles away in the Wheeling, WV/Steubenville, OH area.

Kroger did something similar in my old stomping grounds of Flint, Michigan when they likewise left town in the 80's due to a strike and sold their stores to independent operator Al Kessel.  A little over a decade ago Kroger reacquired them.

Pittsburgh has had a long history of grocery chains that decided to leave town due to union militancy (Kroger, Thorofare, A&P, Loblaws, etc.) and Giant Eagle became the sole survivor, willing to make peace with their union workers.  This fact sat well with Pittsburgh's then-heavily unionized workforce.  This gave Giant Eagle something close to a monopoly on local grocery business and ingrained them into the hearts of Yinzers.  It also resulted in Pittsburgh having some of the nation's highest average prices for food.

This comes on the heels of Giant Eagle selling off their GetGo convenience store division to Couche Tard last year.  Precisely what if anything their future holds after divesting all of their stores is an interesting question.

Last year my wife and I encountered a business consultant who had been meeting with Giant Eagle and who told us that their management "had no (bleeping) idea what they were doing".  Apparently what they have decided to do is cash out.