Albertsons

Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-largest supermarket chain in North America after Kroger. Albertsons ranked 53rd in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Prior to its January 2015 merger with Safeway Inc. for $9.2 billion, it had 1,075 supermarkets located in 29 U.S. states under 12 different banners. Its predecessor company, Albertsons, Inc., was reorganized as Albertsons LLC and sold to AB Acquisition LLC, a Cerberus Capital Management-led consortium. After buying back the majority of its former stores it sold to SuperValu in 2006, AB Acquisition announced it would change its name to Albertsons Companies Inc. in 2015. The company's corporate name was Albertson's Inc. until 2002, when the apostrophe was removed. On October 14, 2022, Kroger announced it would be acquiring Albertsons for$25 billion. Albertsons was founded in 1939 by Joe Albertson (1906–1993) on July 21 in Boise, Idaho. An ad in Boise's Idaho Statesman newspaper touted Albertson's first store as "Idaho's largest and finest food store." The store was filled with perks that, at the time, were brand new: free parking, a money-back guarantee, and even an ice cream shop. The original store was built onto several times, but it was demolished in 1979, and a replacement store was built on the same property. A brick monument stands on the northwest corner of 16th and State Streets in downtown Boise, commemorating the original store. The grocery store was an enormous success, and Albertson reinvested his profits back into the business. New stores were opened in neighboring towns to the west: Nampa, Caldwell, and Emmett, before America's entry into World War II in late 1941. The company grew steadily in the years following World War II.