Haggens acquires Aurora Safeway and LFP Albertsons

Aurora Safeway
Photo courtesy Waymarking

Haggen's grocery chain of Bellingham, which closed a number of its struggling stores in July 2013 including the Haggen's Fresh in Shoreline and Top Foods in Edmonds, is now to be the owner of 146 additional stores nationwide, including the Aurora Safeway in Shoreline and the Lake Forest Park Albertsons.

Albertsons and Safeway announced a merger in March of this year which is expected to close in January 2015. To secure Federal Trade Commission approval for the merger, the new chain would need to divest itself of 168 stores nationwide. They have four buyers:

• Associated Food Stores (AFS) will purchase eight stores in Montana and Wyoming;
• Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG)/Minyards will purchase 12 stores in Texas;
• SUPERVALU will purchase two stores in Washington; and
• Haggen will purchase 146 stores across Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Subject to FTC approval, divested stores will continue to operate as competing grocery stores.

Under the terms of the purchase agreements, the buyers will acquire the stores, equipment and inventory.

After the close of the transaction in early 2015, Haggen will convert all of the acquired Albertsons and Safeway stores to the Haggen banner in phases during the first half of 2015. All Albertson's LLC and Safeway store employees will have the opportunity to become employees of Haggen as their individual stores are transitioned to the Haggen banner. Haggen plans to retain the current store management teams.

“We warmly welcome these new employees and stores into the Haggen family. The stores are well run and very successful, thanks to the dedicated store teams,” said John Clougher, Haggen CEO, Pacific Northwest. 

“We want to retain these existing teams while allowing our growing company to build on their past successes. We plan to adopt the best practices of our new stores to offer a superior shopping experience for our valued customers in all of our stores.” 

John Caple, chairman of the Haggen board of directors and partner at Comvest Partners, a private investment firm that owns the majority of shares of Haggen says “We will continue our focus on sourcing and investing locally even with this exciting expansion.”

“We committed to this acquisition because we knew we had the experience, talent and drive to get it done,” added Caple. “The strength of our management and store support teams, combined with the talent of the store teams at each of the new store locations, will enable Haggen to be a successful West Coast grocer.”