Cerberus is the largest investor in Albertsons, the country’s second-largest supermarket chain by revenue. In October, Kroger, which is nearly twice the size of Albertsons, announced it was going to buy its smaller rival for $24.6 billion. If the deal were to go through without any government-mandated divestitures, the combined company would own some 5,000 stores, making it by far the dominant grocery chain in the country.
Dividend recapitalizations — or dividend recaps, as they are called — have become a fairly common trick in the private equity playbook. Last year, according to a Bloomberg report, companies borrowed around $80 billion — a record — to pay out dividends to their private equity owners. Critics say that dividend recaps too often leave companies without enough capital to withstand a business downturn.
Last month, a group of attorneys general, including Racine in Washington, D.C., and Bob Ferguson in Washington state, filed lawsuits against Kroger and Albertsons hoping to stop the dividend payment.
nytimes We need variety not another MF monopoly!
nytimes tl;dr: Unmitigated Greed?
nytimes When has a monopoly been good for the consumer? Never.
nytimes They will have a strangle hold on food supply in multiple states
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