One of the biggest retail stories to come out of the past holiday season was the announcement that Haggen, an 18-unit grocery chain with stores in Oregon and Washington, planned to acquire 146 stores from Albertsons and Safeway in Arizona, California and Nevada.
The deal was made possible because the Federal Trade Commission required Albertsons LLC and Safeway to sell off stores to approve a merger of the two large supermarket operators.
"With this pivotal acquisition, we will have the opportunity to introduce many more customers to the Haggen experience," said John Caple, chairman of the Haggen board and partner at Comvest Partners, a private investment firm that purchased a majority stake in the grocery store operator in 2011, in a statement. "We will continue our focus on sourcing and investing locally even with this exciting expansion."
The deal, which is expected to close early this year, will put Haggen on a whole new playing field. In recognition of the task ahead, current Haggen CEO John Clougher, formerly the CEO of Andronico's Community Markets, will run the company's business in Oregon and Washington, while Bill Shaner, a former president and CEO of Save-a-Lot, will lead Haggen's business in its new markets.
Haggen plans to convert all of the newly acquired stores to its own banner during the first half of the year. The company has said it wants employees of the stores to remain after the sale is completed.
"The stores are well run and very successful, thanks to the dedicated store teams," Mr. Clougher said last month. "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 our stores."
Haggen stores in Arizona, California and Nevada will be supplied by Unified Grocers while Supervalu will handle distribution at its 64 locations in Oregon and Washington.
Editor's note: Back in the early 1990s when I first visited stores in Washington operated by the Haggen family, a couple of things stood out. The first, because I had never seen it anywhere before, was the long line that seemed to be in place all day long at the Starbucks located at the front entrance to the store. The other was the chain's ties to its Pacific Northwest roots and its commitment to local communities. Today, from reports I've gotten, it's clear the company is even more committed to local suppliers and communities. It will be interesting to see how that plays out as Haggen moves into new markets as a decidedly larger entity.
- Haggen to Expand From 18 stores to 164 With Major Acquisition - Haggen
- Haggen Announces Investment Partnership with The Comvest Group - The Comvest Group
- Bellingham's Haggen to acquire 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores - The Bellingham Herald
- 7 things to know about Haggen, the grocery store coming our way - Orange County Register