Kroger plans to buy Albertsons in a deal valued at $24.6 billion, a merger that would merge the two largest grocery-store chains in the U.S., the companies said on Friday.
The deal is likely to draw intense scrutiny from federal regulators and critics as it would form a new supermarket colossus at a time of soaring food costs.Kroger is the largest supermarket operator in the U.S., with 420,000 employees and more than 2,700 stores, including Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, and King Soopers. Albertsons is the country's second-largest supermarket company, with 290,000 employees and almost 2,300 stores, including Safeway and Vons.
The two overlap in several markets, largely in the western part of the country. Their tie-up would involve spinning off up to 375 stores into a separate company, the companies said. In the , Kroger said it would"reinvest approximately half a billion dollars of cost savings from synergies to reduce prices for customers" and invest $1 billion to raise wages and benefits for workers.
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