Supermarket chain Albertsons files for US IPO

Cerebus bought Safeway and merged it with Albertsons earlier this year, creating the second-largest USA supermarket chain by number of stores after Kroger Co. It operates more than 2,200 supermarkets, including 1,247 Safeway stores.

Grocery-store chain Albertsons Cos. Sales at locations open at least a year rose an adjusted 4.6% last year, driven by growth in SVU Albertsons Stores.

The company also operates 456 Albertsons supermarkets in 16 states.

While many aspects of the company’s strategy sound familiar to competitors, the company claims it has developed a proven and successful operating playbook that differentiates it from competitors.

Albertsons employs about 265,000 full- and part-time workers. To win regulatory approval for its acquisition of Safeway, the company agreed to sell 111 Albertsons’ and 57 Safeway stores across eight states to four separate buyers.

Albertsons closed its $8 billion buyout of Safeway in January, drastically increasing the company’s size.

Albertsons said it now executing an annual synergy plan of about $800 million from the acquisition of Safeway, which it expects to achieve by the end of fiscal 2018, with associated one-time costs of about $690 million.

The content of the filing was a nominal fund raising target of $100 million.

Big portions of the expense savings are expected to come from familiar sources such as simplifying business processes, rationalizing headcount and extracting more favorable terms from branded and private label suppliers. “Finally, we intend to consolidate managed care provider reimbursement programs, increase vaccine penetration and leverage our combined scale”.