MarketWatch: Whole Foods to sell 31 Wild Oats stores to settle with U.S.

[marmar]

Whole Foods in pact to sell 31 Wilds Oats stores
By Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Whole Foods Market Inc. said Friday it will sell 31 Wild Oats stores and other assets to settle the government's antitrust challenge to the upscale grocer's acquisition of the chain back in the summer of 2007.

Under the pact, Whole Foods , the largest U.S. organic grocer, will divest 19 former Wild Oats stores that were closed, 12 operating Wild Oats stores, one operating Whole Foods store, and Wild Oats' trademarks and other intellectual property.

"It will be business as usual in the 13 operating stores to be marketed for sale," Chairman John Mackey said in a statement. "We will be offering team members in stores that are sold the choice of either a guaranteed job offer in another store or an enhanced severance package."

Terms of the deal can take effect pending a 30-day comment period ending April 6. The divestiture trustee will have six months to market the assets to be divested.

Whole Foods shares, which rose 2.5% after the announcement to close at $12.08, have managed to buck the severe downtrend in the broader market so far this year with a 27% rally. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Whole-Foods-sell-31-Wild/story.aspx?guid=%7B0A7ACFF1%2DA3F5%2D43B9%2DB93C%2DE0CB9730258D%7D&dist=hplatest

[elleng]

1. Great time to try to sell business, eh?

Bushies got Whole Foods for anti-trust. What about some banks, oil cos, pharmas?

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

2. Whole Foods=bullies.

The antitrust case against Whole Foods was brought primarily due to their predatory behavior in areas where they faced direct competition. I'm not talking about the Ralph's or the Publix or the Safeways that have a single table of organic items, but rather the markets and groceries that specialized in organic items. With the one exception being the national chain Wild Oats, Whole Foods has dedicated itself to eradicating locally owned and operated natural food stores, typically small, regional chains. WF CEO John Mackey, perhaps most infamous for his pseudonymous email campaign which attempted to influence investors to drop their Wild Oats shares (and thus allow WF to gobble them up) regularly uses terms like "obliterate" when referring to localized competition. This is frustrating for me because, for many years, I saw John Mackey as a pioneer, taking point in the fight to inform consumers about their food choices. In the last two years, his behavior has been purely corporate, fueled by greed. Gone is the message of eating locally grown, sustainably harvested foods. Department managers have little or no say in what comes in from WF warehouses for them to sell.

Recently, my workplace came into their sights. In an attempt to defend themselves from the FTC's antitrust case, they subpoenaed several years' worth of my company's market analyses, expansion plans, and sales figures, all of which is highly proprietary. My company fought this subpoena (I told my boss: "Just don't answer it! It's all the rage these days--just ask Karl Rove and Harriet Miers!" but lost, and we are now forced to supply this data, at our own expense (last estimate was somewhere between $250k-$500k, a lot of dosh for a company with only nine locations).

It is very likely that several of the Wild Oats stores in our area will be the ones to close or sell (because, after WF took over Wild Oats, they shuttered numerous stores in this area, and the remaining stores are all under-performing). If 19 out of the 31 stores to close or sell are already closed, this appears very disingenuous.