Publix has owned the conventional southeast US, but is starting to feel the heat from Kroger (Lucky's, and other subs). Wegman's is now also entering the Southeast for the first time, NC I believe, where they will go head to head for the first time ever with Publix) The original owner of Publix and Wegman's were great (friends by the way), then you have Sprouts also entering the FLA market where Publix is king....Publix tried this route already through their Greenwise stores, which failed miserably because they launched the concept right around the financial crisis and had problems weathering the subsequent recession. Buying or merging with WFM gives Publix an Instant national footprint to compete against the likes of Kroger in the natural space. WFM is becoming more and more convinced they can't go this route alone anymore, they don't have the capital behind them that a Kroger has and they were asleep at the wheel (poor management) and too arrogant to see this happening in the natural and organic space. Now they are combining grocery stores with restaurants in new stores, with full service bars and multiple food venues in a food hall type atmosphere. Even if this concept is successful, it's only in the newer stores and it would take YEARS if at all to implement it in many of the existing stores....so some will go away all together as others are incorporated into Publix territory.
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It's so dead around here we are looking at a three year old thread
Would publix still give stock to employees
I work for publix and this company treats there employees well,it's a clean place ,great customer service. Publix stocks are amazing, there deli subs are the best in the world,and all my friends and family will not shop anywhere other than publix.
Wegmans and Publix merging wouldn't be such a bad idea, their store count would increase by 100 stores and now cover 5 new states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Massachusetts... at least if the FTC doesn't require them to close stores in Virginia where the stores would overlap. When Safeway and Albertsons merged, 168 stores in Southern California and a few other regions were sold and closed and reopened under a new third party (Haggen) as required by the FTC, but the third party couldn't hold up financially well in these markets and now many of these stores shuttered and most now either were sold to other stores such as discount grocery stores that don't fit well into these spaces, or even some still sit vacant boarded up today. Of course, it probably wouldn't be as many stores if they merged, but the FTC still needs to make sure they get sold to a third party that can handle the extra stores, such as an expansion of a company already in Virginia that locals would trust like Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, or even Safeway, or split them up between the three.
This will never happen
to all u publix lovers i worked there go ask a store manager to lift up the grates in theproduce dept. its all slime dead bugs etcpublix really s---s high price for the same u can get in kroger so keep wasting your money dummies
What do some of you have to say now that Amazon is your owner?
Haha. That would be the first to go. Second would be the bloated mid level store management. It would be instant savings. This would happen tegardlesss of who buys us.
Publix knows how to compete with good stores,service and good pricing..they dont want our baggage and bloated regional level staffing
Publix would never buy or merge . They slowly put the others out of business and then buy the best locations from them for pennies on the dollar.
The German Place ALDI has a quarter deposit on shopping carts so the customer brings the cart back. Its a way to cut payroll. Publix pays people (a lot handicapped or mentally challenged) to take care of the carts. It is UN-american to shop at AlDI. Send them back to Germany. Make America Great Again. Shop Publix.
yes wholefoods is sinking they just dont want to come out and say it
No, Publix isn't feeling any heat whatsoever. Publix is privately owned but the board issues an annual statement on sales and earnings and sets the stock price based on mathematical factors and comparisons with other retailers. The only thing Publix ever buys from other retailers is real estate so they can demolish what's there and build a new Publix. I know a host of people who work at Publix and nothing you've said about Publix is true. Publix is highly successful, is employee-owned, and neither wants nor needs to buy our company. The takeover rumours which are constantly coming up surrounding our company are started (in my view) by desperate management looking to temporarily re-inflate the bubble. I believe it's pure pump-and-dump.
Lidl plans on opening 150 stores by 2018...correction to my earlier post stating they have already opened some here....they sure did mean to but got setback. Regardless, they are coming and no one at WFM is talking about it. That's odd.
I lived in Germany for 8 years lidl and aldi are awesome, I hope they carry some of the German products in their stores. These stores will put whole foods on its back
Lindl is owned by the schwarz group and they have already opened stores here this year. They own 20,000 grocery stores in europe.
Or Lidl. That's right...who? Lidl. Aldi's main and most aggressive competition in Germany is coming to the U.S. in 2018.
Aldi.
I've heard it's a german group...just rumors though.
My location has had tour groups all week. I believe it will be an international buyer.
Here's what's up.... The new stores that are opening are legally bound to open since they are under contract. Wherever a new store is planned to open other businesses rely on WFM's presence. So if we do not open them then we get slammed with several lawsuits.
Now - "new stores in development"...that's where you may find a smoking gun. Those are all just in the works. If that list is non existent or is not getting added to then maybe we don't really plan on opening too many more.
It use to be a big deal hearing about new store leases. In my region we usually got "exciting emails" declaring new leases and the such. I haven't seen that in a while. I also have not researched it so I'm blowing bubbles on that one.
I'm not sure that we are being sold off, but, it would make sense to drive the stock price down even lower if that were the case. Someone would likely look at WFM if it devalued to $20 a share and snatch it up for more natural grocery market share.
If you google the news you will find that all of the grocery chains have been seeing drops in sales and have had to make cuts here and there.
For example, in Tulsa, OK of all places you have a TJs, Fresh Market, Natural Grocers and WFM all close to one another. I may be leaving one big player out but the point is this concept is everywhere.
SOP might just bring the stock price point down enough to make us more buyable so to speak to a much bigger player.
Only speculation though.
@2pf- Do yourself a favor and go look up Enron's history. There are ways to hide problems in new store debt. Our execs have been dodgy on numbers for well over a year now. If our growth starts accelerating unsustainably you'll know we're in real trouble.
They don't want our stinkin' pile. They know better.
Question. I see the ship sinking. I've been with WFM for almost 10 years and it's so drastically different from when I started it feels like a different company. However, if they are in such trouble why are they opening new stores? Not just the 365, but real WFM stores? I'm under the impression that a company declaring bankruptcy or looking to sell wouldn't be breaking ground on new stuff? What's the deal with that?
Then let their egos sink them I just don't give a damn anymore!
Layoffs, merging of teams, reducing inventory by way of OTS, and yesterday's exchange offer all point to a buyout. Mackey will keep his 365 baby. All phases will be completed by 2018.
problem is the stores are expensive- and yes designed by idiots- the NYC stores are costing 30M plus with all the venues which is 5 times the average cost of a new supermarket- its ego all the way- and taking down the poor slobs that believed in their BS the" Whole"time. When the old RP's were in place they would never let this happen- then Lannon and company came to be and the rest is a down hill slide
The ego thing was last year's news...they understand the situation is much more dire at this point. Last year they had all these great ideas to "innovate" out of it. The restaurant at the new flagship store in philly will be more like Eataly fame and the bar will be open later.
The "restaurants" and "bars" are pathetic. They bring in food and heat it up just like Marianos(see the fake Chiptole Taco station). Due to the team structure they are unrunnable. They are a pale shadow of a real bar or.restaurant. David Lannon must have seen a bar on TV and thought it looked cool. It doesn't seem like anyone who designs these things has ever been in a bar, much less run one..What kind of coffee shop opens at 8a? What kind of bar closes at 10p? A lame one.
I doubt this is true. WFM leadership has too much ego to agree to be bought out by a competitor.