The story
In 1870, Hugh G. Harrison provided the money for B.S. Bull and Company, a dry goods wholesaler serving Minneapolis. Though B.S. Bull and Company was short lived, its founders went on to create a similar company. In 1926, SuperValu's direct ancestor, Winston and Newell Company, was founded from the merger of Winston, Harper and Fisher and the Newell Company, two companies founded by B. S. Bull's backers.
Winston and Newell was a charter member of the Independent Grocers Alliance in 1928, but left IGA in 1942 in favor of forming a "virtual chain" of independently owned stores that operated under the SuperValu and U-Save banners. However, it still serves as a supplier to many IGA stores. This concept proved to be such a success that in 1952, the company changed its name to SuperValu Inc. The name was modified to SuperValu in 1992.
The company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1967.
Acquisitions
In 1955, SuperValu acquired Joannes Brothers Company of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a wholesale and retail grocer serving Wisconsin and northern Michigan since 1872. Joannes Brothers became SuperValu's Green Bay Division, moving from its original downtown Green Bay location to a modern facility in the city's suburbs.
In 1963, the company acquired the Food Marketing Corporation of Fort Wayne, Indiana, which traced its roots to the early 1800s, as Bursley & Company. The acquisition of Food Marketing brought SuperValu into the institutional market. George W. McKay, president of Food Marketing, joined SuperValu as an executive vice president and later as president and chief executive officer of SuperValu in 1970.
In 1971, SuperValu acquired the discount store chain ShopKo. It was spun off in 1991 to form a separate, publicly traded company. SuperValu retained a 46% interest in the new company, which Shopko later purchased in 1997.
In 1973, SuperValu founded the clothing store County Seat, and in 1983 sold it to Carson Pirie Scott.
In 1975, SuperValu acquired Hornbacher's.
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In 1980, the company acquired Minnesota-based Cub Foods, which operated five stores in the Twin Cities area. As of 2011, Cub operated more than 73 stores in Minnesota and Illinois.
In the early 1990s, SuperValu started acquiring several chains such as Scott's Food & Pharmacy in 1991, Wetterau, Inc. and its holdings Shop 'n Save and Save-A-Lot in 1992, and Bigg's in 1994. Scotts & Biggs were subsequently divested. Biggs was sold to Remke Markets and Scotts to Kroger.
SuperValu acquired Richfood Holdings for $1.5 billion, adding a Mid-Atlantic distribution presence and stores including Farm Fresh Food & Pharmacy, Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, and Metro.
In 2003, SuperValu acquired the former Midwest operations of Fleming Companies from C&S Wholesale Grocers, including the Sentry Foods and Festival Foods brands.
On January 23, 2006, SuperValu announced that it, along with CVS Corporation and a collection of investors led by Cerberus Group, agreed to acquire Albertsons, Inc. for $9.7 billion. The acquisition was completed on June 2, 2006.
SuperValu acquired over 1100 stores in the deal including:
Acme (134 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
Acme Express, Jewel Express, and Albertsons Express (107 fuel centers) (units were divested to various operators)
Albertsons (564 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
Bristol Farms (15 locations) (later sold off)
Jewel and Jewel-Osco (198 locations sold to Cerberus)
Lazy Acres Market (1 location) (later sold off)
Max Foods (3 locations) (later rebranded Lucky)
Osco Pharmacy and Sav-on Pharmacy (906 pharmacies) (Stand-alone stores sold to CVS)
Save-A-Lot (2 locations franchised by Shaw's)
Shaw's (188 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
Star Market (20 locations) (7 re-branded Shaw's) (sold to Cerberus)
In 2009, former Walmart executive Craig Herkert took over from Jeff Noddle as CEO of SuperValu.
On January 6, 2011, SuperValu announced it would close 20 underperforming stores. On January 11, 2011, SuperValu reported a loss of $202 million for the quarter; revenue also fell 6% to $8.67 billion. SuperValu's share price fell 12 percent to $7.52 per share.
In September 2011, SuperValu announced the sale of all but 27 of its fuel centers to several convenience store chains, including Tesoro, Holiday Stationstores, Couche-Tard (which operates Circle K Stores), and Stinker Stores. The company announced it would seek buyers for the remaining fuel centers too.
In 2012, SuperValu operated 2,505 food and food/drug combination stores, 878 in-store pharmacies, and 117 fuel centers and served as primary distributor to an additional 2,200 stores. SuperValu also supplied a network of independent retailers (often found in smaller cities) that sometimes use the SuperValu name. However, these stores were not owned by the company. SuperValu also franchised the Cub Foods and Save-A-Lot brands to independent retailers. The company operated on a strategy of effective and efficient food distribution, conducting its retail food operations through a total of 2,349 retail food stores that were supplied by 32 distribution centers.
On July 11, 2012, after the close of trading, SuperValu reported net sales of $10.6 billion and net earnings of $41 million for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013, compared to net sales of $11.1 billion and net earnings for $74 million for the year-earlier period. Those results sent SuperValu shares down some 45% after the start of trading on July 12, 2012, and hurt performance of other outstanding SuperValu debt, including its high yield bonds and CDS (credit default swap).
On July 30, 2012, Craig Herkert was let go as CEO of SuperValu, replaced with Wayne Sales.
In January 2013, the company announced it was selling the Acme Markets, Shaw's, and Jewel-Osco chains and their remaining Albertsons stores to Cerberus Capital Management for $100 million in cash with Cerberus assuming $3.2 billion in existing debt. SuperValu would keep its Cub, Farm Fresh, Shoppers Food & Pharmacy and Shop ‘n Save brands as well as its wholesale supply operation while the Acme, Shaw's, Star Market, and Jewel-Osco stores were reunited with Albertsons. The deal closed March 21, 2013.
On March 14, 2018 Supervalu announced it would be closing 21 of its 38 Farm Fresh locations, selling 18 to Kroger and 3 to Food Lion.
On January 13, 2013, Sam Duncan, who had retired as CEO of OfficeMax in 2011, was named CEO of SuperValu. Duncan announced his retirement in October 2015.
In July 2016, it was announced that SuperValu had entered into a purchase agreement with Ahold and Delhaize Group for 22 Food Lion locations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia as part of the divestiture of stores to gain clearance from the Federal Trade Commission for the Ahold/Delhaize merger. The 22 stores were rebranded under the Shop ‘n Save retail banner.
On February 3, 2016, Mark Gross was named CEO of SuperValu, replacing Sam Duncan.
In October 2016, SuperValu announced they were selling Save-A-Lot to Onex Corporation.
In April 2017, the company announced that it had entered into a $375 million merger agreement with Unified Grocers, based in Commerce, California, in which Unified Grocers would become a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu when the merger is completed. The deal was expected to be finalized in late summer 2017, with the merger process then taking about two years to implement. Later in 2017, SuperValu acquired Associated Grocers of Florida.
Sale
On July 26, 2018, United Natural Foods agreed to buy Supervalu for $2.9 billion in cash. On October 22, 2018, UNFI completed the acquisition of Supervalu. Sean Griffin was named the CEO of Supervalu, replacing Mark Gross.
From Wikipedia’s article on SuperValu (United States), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6