Mergers and Acquisitions

Posted on April 30, 2018

Walmart Sells its UK Stores

Touch the Soil News #1004 (Feature photo – ASDA stores in the U.K. are owned by Walmart but are now being sold – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) The business consolidations going on today raise concerns about the effectiveness of laws designed to curtail monopolies. One of the things in nature that is important is a concept called diversity. Today we are seeing more and more decisions and political power wielded by a smaller and smaller diversity of people and management teams. Walmart has approximately 640 stores in the United Kingdom under the ASDA brand. So, how much does it take for Walmart to not be in the Walmart business in…

Posted on March 23, 2018

Rumors of a Whopper of a Merger

Touch the Soil News #970 (Feature photo – Wall Street – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) While competition has been a hallmark principal of economics, it can drive prices down to a point where choice and jobs can potentially take a beating. Rumors have just surfaced that Kroger Foods and Target may be flirting with a merger. The reason is to cut costs in the heat of an overly competitive landscape. Cutting costs often means backwashing on suppliers and employees. Target, which is 88 percent owned by institutional investors is valued by the market at around $37 billion dollars. Target has over 1,800 locations and around 340,000 employees. Kroger, which is…

Posted on September 12, 2017

Dow Chemical and DuPont – Now Are One Company

Touch the Soil News #802 (Feature photo – Jenni Jones – CC SA 2.0) The world is at a crossroads when it comes to chemicals including plastics. The recent hurricanes have breached many safety efforts from keeping toxins out of the environment. Unfortunately, the Houston metro area has more than a dozen Superfund sites. However, two giants in the business of chemicals for industry and agriculture just completed a merger they have been working on since 2015. Market analysts value the combined company at $130 billion. The new merged company is called DowDupont will operate as one company with plans to split into three different companies over the next 18…

Posted on August 1, 2017

Multi-Billion Dollar Mustard

Touch the Soil News #767 (Feature Photo – Aeae-commonswiki – CC SA 3.0) We’ve all had French’s Mustard and many are familiar with Frank’s RedHot hot sauce. These two Iconic brands are owned by a British company called Rekitt Benkiser – not a name we associate with the mustard. However, Rekitt Benkiser wants to sell its garnishment brands that include French’s Mustard and Frank’s RedHot. Two of the world’s largest food companies – Unilever and Hormel Foods – were in there competing to buy the brands. At the time, talk was around $2.9 billion for the brands. However, neither got the mustard. McCormick Company – the company that makes the…

Posted on June 21, 2017

Amazon Buys Whole Foods – There’s More to the Story (Part 3 of 3)

Touch the Soil News #733 (headquarters of BlackRock, Inc. – the world’s largest investment management firm CC SA 3.0) Behind the scenes of the potential Whole Foods sale to Amazon, there is more at stake for the American public and particularly the investors than first meets the eye. Today, everyone assumes the stockholders of Whole Foods and Amazon will approve the deal. So, other than Jeff Bezos who owns only 16.9 percent of Amazon stock who are some of the other big holders of Amazon stock? Come to find out, some of the largest stockholders in Amazon (besides Bezos) and Whole Foods are one and the same – the institutional…

Posted on June 21, 2017

Amazon Buys Whole Foods – There’s More to the Story (Part 2 of 3)

Touch the Soil News #732 (feature photo – Amazon headquarters in Seattle – CC SA 2.0) Who is Amazon? The surface answer is that it is the world’s largest online retailer. As we will briefly explore, there is a whole lot more to this story. Prior to diving into who Amazon is, our expectation was to find a company fat with profits, making lots of money and the reason why Jeff Bezos is considered the world’s third richest man. What we found was shocking. For the years 2011 through 2015, Whole Foods was more than twice as profitable as Amazon. Amazon had its first year of modest profits in 2016…

Posted on June 21, 2017

Amazon Buys Whole Foods – There’s More to the Story (Part 1 of 3)

Touch the Soil News #731 (feature photo – Interior of the largest Whole Foods Market in East Village, New York – CC SA 3.0) Competition in the grocery business, when combined with the impatience of investors, may bring down grocery prices, but at the risk of broader economic decline in America. Americans will spend approximately $1.6 trillion on food this year – about half at restaurants and half in grocery stores. Unlike years past, the grocery industry has become concentrated (see News piece #725 Food Titans – Prepare for Battle). As Americans, we have become used to companies competing. However, the big companies left to compete are no longer just…

Posted on April 19, 2017

Big Fish Being Eaten by Bigger Fish

Touch the Soil News #676 (feature photo – CCA SA 4.0 International) The Food Chain is always an interesting place to learn about money, economics and the world we live in. The Big Fish: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen was founded in 1972. The company grew and grew until it had over 2,600 restaurants in 40 states and over 30 countries. It was a big employer too, with around 130,000 employees before a bigger fish swallowed it for $1.8 billion. The Bigger Fish: Restaurant Brands International (RBI) bought Popeyes for $1.8 billion. RBI owns Burger King and Tim Hortons in Canada- which together had over 20,300 restaurants. The new company is…

Posted on April 17, 2017 April 17, 2017

Goodby WhiteWave

Touch the Soil News #675 (feature photo CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication) Most of us have never heard of WhiteWave Foods from Colorado. That’s because it is a “parent” company of many different brands. It is the brands we are familiar with, not the ownership and the backroom gamesmanship. WhiteWave was born out of a spin-off from Dean Foods in 2012. So, over the past five years, WhiteWave has been like a snowball rolling downhill and accumulating everything in sight. WhiteWave ultimately owned all of these brands: Earthbound Organics (largest organic farm in the USA) Horizon Organic (think Horizon organic milk) Silk brand soy milk Wallaby Organic Yogurt International…

Posted on March 21, 2017

When Big Capital Speculates

Touch the Soil News #654 (Feature photo – CC SA 3.0) While we call it the food chain, make no mistake the primary focus of food-chain giants is not food. It’s about how much money we can take out of the food businesses. After many years of consolidating, the stores of Albertson’s, Safeway, SuperValu, Acme, Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Shaw’s, Skaggs, Seeessel’s, Bruno’s, Smitty’s, Buttrey Food and Drug and Star Market have all been acquired into one company now called Albertsons Companies, Inc. Albertsons Companies Inc. is owned by a capital management firm called Cerberus. News leaked out recently that Albertsons Companies Inc. is looking at buying Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (Sprouts)…