{"id":7514,"date":"2024-12-10T22:14:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=7514"},"modified":"2024-12-10T22:14:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:14:22","slug":"kroger-albertsons-25bn-grocery-merger-blocked-by-us-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=7514","title":{"rendered":"Kroger-Albertsons $25bn grocery merger blocked by US judge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=075174ee-614a-4911-bd39-286788dc2ab0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The largest supermarket merger in US history has been blocked by a federal judge, handing a victory to federal antitrust regulators who argued Kroger\u2019s $24.6bn purchase of Albertsons would harm consumers and workers. <\/p>\n<p>US district judge Adrienne Nelson in Oregon on Tuesday imposed a preliminary injunction on the takeover, which sends the proceedings to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/16817525-f0c8-42ab-95b1-f6ed54220a49\" data-trackable=\"link\">Federal Trade Commission<\/a> for further consideration. The decision diminishes the odds of the deal being completed. <\/p>\n<p>Nelson concluded \u201cthe merger would lead to undue market concentration in multiple geographic markets in both the supermarkets and large-format stores markets that would presumptively lessen competition\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Grocery prices have risen more than a quarter in the past five years, reflecting transport bottlenecks, labour shortages, commodity costs and strong demand from consumers. Food inflation became a central theme of the US presidential race and put the nation\u2019s two biggest supermarket operators under a microscope. <\/p>\n<p>The deal between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/402f0f70-c2d7-437b-ade6-3f21727d4dfc\" data-trackable=\"link\">Kroger<\/a> and Albertsons would place thousands of stores under a single owner and consolidate their footprint in certain regions. The companies have argued they need to merge to withstand competition from retail behemoths such as Walmart, Costco and Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>Kroger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/99cdbd23-8637-4c06-ac8c-4618196b817d\" data-trackable=\"link\">agreed<\/a> to buy Albertsons for $34.10 a share in October 2022. The FTC, eight states and the District of Columbia <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/452f9c63-71a6-4fde-9c44-0fd87c246321\" data-trackable=\"link\">sued <\/a>to block the deal in February, arguing the combination risked higher prices for consumers and weaker bargaining power for the companies\u2019 unionised employees. <\/p>\n<p>The FTC on Tuesday said: \u201cToday\u2019s win protects competition in the grocery market, which will prevent prices from rising even more. This statement win makes it clear that strong, reality-based antitrust enforcement delivers real results for consumers, workers, and small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The federal case is one of three challenging the deal. The attorneys-general of Colorado and Washington separately filed lawsuits alleging harm in their states\u2019 courts. The judge in the Washington case ruled to block the merger later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Wall Street has for months put a low probability on the deal being approved, with Albertsons shares trading at a roughly 40 per cent discount to the agreed deal price. They dropped 2.3 per cent after the federal ruling to $18.50.<\/p>\n<p>The companies have pledged to divest 579 stores nationwide to address competition concerns, including 124 in Washington. But labour groups have questioned the credentials of the buyer, C&amp;S Wholesale Grocers, a relatively small player in the US retail supermarket industry.<\/p>\n<p>The federal decision is a success for the FTC under chair Lina Khan, an appointee of President Joe Biden who has taken an aggressive position on antitrust enforcement. <\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s ruling is the latest legal victory for the regulator, after a federal judge in New York recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a56e981f-e3e8-473f-9eea-2251b64c6e4f\" data-trackable=\"link\">blocked<\/a> the merger of fashion brands Capri and Tapestry, writing in her decision that \u201cantitrust has come into fashion\u201d. The companies later abandoned the deal. <\/p>\n<p>Khan is expected to be replaced after president-elect Donald Trump is sworn in next month.<\/p>\n<p><em>Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/075174ee-614a-4911-bd39-286788dc2ab0\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}