@[email protected] @[email protected] 2. @[email protected] recorded a $3.5 billion profit in 2021 and projects an even larger haul, $4.9 billion, in 2022. Kroger itself has fueled the consolidation, acquiring a slew of competing chains, including Harris Teeter and Fred Meyer.

Now, Kroger wants to get MUCH BIGGER

@[email protected] @[email protected] 3. @[email protected] recently announced an agreement to purchase @[email protected], the nation's second-largest grocery store chain, for about $25 billion. Albertsons itself acquired another major competitor, Safeway, in 2015 for $9.2 billion.

https://popular.info/p/buying-the-competition

4. The combined grocery behemoth that would operate nearly 5,000 stores and control 22% of the grocery market in the United States, trailing only Walmart

Kroger-Albertsons and Walmart "would control 70 percent or more of the [grocery] market in 167 cities in the United States."

5. Kroger claims the merger would benefit consumers, pledging to "invest $500 million to lower prices" over four years as part of the transaction.

Sounds good but that's $125 million per year out of $200 billion+ in revenue.

Effectively nothing.

https://popular.info/p/buying-the-competition

6. An influential 2008 study "found that in four of the five mergers they evaluated, [grocery] prices appeared to have increased between 3 and 7 percent."

https://popular.info/p/buying-the-competition

7. Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act, enforced by the FTC, prohibits acquisitions that substantially "lessen competition" in "any line of commerce."

@[email protected] admits the merger will lessen competition in some markets and proposes divesting a few hundred @[email protected] stores

8. These divestiture schemes are used to gain approval for mergers, but seldom work. When @[email protected] bought @[email protected], it divested 168 stores to get regulatory approval.

The company that bought the stores went bankrupt in months, and Albertsons bought back a bunch of stores

9. The private equity firms that own most of @[email protected] are also trying to get a $4 billion "special dividend" from the company prior to the merger.

It would make it extremely difficult for @[email protected] to continue to operate independently

https://popular.info/p/buying-the-competition

10. The $4 billion dividend is currently held up in court.

If it is approved, Albertsons "will be in the position of arguing to federal and state antitrust enforcers that it is preferable to allow Kroger to purchase its remaining assets because it is a failing firm."

11. Don't rely on algorithms controlled by right-wing billionaires for news.

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