Massive Grocery Companies Are Now Selling Stores in California

March 12, 2024

Massive grocery companies are now selling stores in California for nearly $2 billion, sources have confirmed.

Kroger and Albertsons supermarkets will sell more than 400 stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers for nearly $2 billion as part of their proposed $25 billion merger, the companies announced on Friday.

The divestiture, which was first reported to be in the works on Tuesday by Bloomberg, is part of a move to mollify antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission.

Kroger and Albertsons agreed to sell stores that are in the Pacific Northwest, the Mountain states and in California, Texas, Illinois, and the East Coast.

Kroger and Albertsons outlined the potential sale of 100 to 375 stores when they first announced their proposal in 2022.

They have since disclosed they would cap divested stores at 650 locations.

The proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger would be one of the largest retail takeovers in history.

The deal would give Kroger almost 5,000 stores and more than 700,000 workers before an undetermined number of store divestitures.

The two companies have vowed not to close stores or layoff workers, but the unions and other critics are skeptical.

Consumer and union groups have opposed the deal, claiming it would hurt competition and ultimately raise prices and harm workers.

Regulators have declined to comment as they decide whether to block it.

Kroger executives have vowed to fight for the deal in court.

Below is a list of the number of stores closing in 17 US states:

104 Albertsons Cos. and Kroger stores in Washington
66 Albertsons Cos. and Kroger stores in California
52 Albertsons Cos. stores in Colorado
49 Albertsons Cos. and Kroger stores in Oregon
28 Albertsons Cos. stores in Texas and Louisiana
24 Albertsons Cos. stores in Arizona
15 Albertsons Cos. stores in Nevada
14 Kroger stores in Illinois
14 Albertsons Cos. stores in Alaska
13 Albertsons Cos. stores in Idaho
12 Albertsons Cos. stores in New Mexico
12 Albertsons Cos. stores in Montana, Utah and Wyoming
10 Harris Teeter stores in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia

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Also Read: A Massive Mall Retailer Is Now Closing in California

Other Economy News Today

A leading tech company is now cutting a whopping 8,000 jobs, part of a plan to increase its AI output, sources confirm.

IBM told employees on Tuesday in its marketing and communications division that it is slashing the size of its staff, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Jonathan Adashek, IBM’s chief communications officer, made the announcement in a roughly seven-minute meeting with staffers in the unit, said the person, who asked not to be named because the news hasn’t been made public, reports CNBC.

In December, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC that the company was “massively upskilling all of our employees on AI,” after it announced a plan in August to replace nearly 8,000 jobs with AI.

IBM said on its earnings call in January of last year that it was cutting 3,900 positions.

“In 4Q earnings earlier this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single digit percentage of IBM’s global workforce, and we expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with,” IBM told CNBC in a statement.

The latest cuts come alongside another round of downsizing in the tech industry.

So far this year, some 204 tech companies have cut almost 50,000 jobs, according to the website Layoffs.fyi.

January was the busiest month for tech layoffs since March, as Alphabet, Amazon and Unity all announced massive job cuts.

IBM has returned to growth in the past couple years, but expansion remains muted, says CNBC.

“Revenue in the fourth quarter increased 4% from a year earlier even as earnings topped estimates. CFO James Kavanaugh spoke of workforce rebalancing on the earnings call.”

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Also Read: Another Business Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Kentucky

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