Southeastern Grocers (formerly Bi-Lo Holdings) is a supermarket portfolio headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The portfolio was created by Lone Star Funds in September 2013 as the new parent company for BI-LO, Harveys, Winn-Dixie, and Fresco y Más. Southeastern Grocers was rated #31 in Forbes 2015 ranking on America's Largest Private Companies.
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History
On March 21, 2007, Lone Star Funds announced that they were spinning off the 67 Bruno's Supermarkets and Food World stores from BI-LO into a separate company to be based out of Birmingham. On April 16, 2007, Lone Star announced that they were putting the 230-store BI-LO chain up for sale. Soon after, C&S announced that it was closing the Chattanooga distribution center that served the BI-LOs in the Chattanooga area and portions of North Georgia.
On March 23, 2009, the company announced that it had filed chapter 11 bankruptcy and intended to use the court-supervised process to address "an upcoming debt maturity." The company said that expects its stores and regular operations to continue to operate as usual during the process. The company secured a $100 million loan from GE Capital in order to continue paying wages, salaries, benefits, suppliers, and vendors. In October 2009, Delhaize Group, headquartered in Belgium and owner of competing chain Food Lion, announced that it entered a preliminary, non-binding agreement to purchase $425 million worth of assets from the chain. Shortly after, in November 2009, the company filed plans with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to restructure, with parent company Lone Star Funds providing a $350 million cash infusion, and Delhaize Group and Food Lion left out of the plans. Lone Star Funds said that it was possible that BI-LO could emerge from bankruptcy in the first quarter of 2010.
On May 12, 2010, the company emerged from bankruptcy protection, under a plan approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of South Carolina. BI-LO, a Supermarket News Top 75 Retailer for 2010, remains under ownership of Lone Star Funds after restructuring. BI-LO was reportedly put up for sale in August 2010; Kroger and Publix were said to be interested in acquiring the chain, but nothing ever developed from these rumors.
In September 2013, Southeastern Grocers was created by Lone Star Funds as the new parent company for BI-LO, Harveys, and Winn-Dixie. The new parent company then filed to raise as much as $500 million in an U.S. initial public offering and list its common stock under the "SEG" symbol. On August 19, 2014 Southeastern Grocers withdrew their IPO filing with the SEC, aborting the process of listing the stock for public sale.
In July 2015, Southeastern Grocers announced the sale of its 21 BI-LO locations in the Chattanooga, Tennessee market as well as eight BI-LO locations in Northern Georgia to K-VA-T Food Stores, which would rebrand the stores under its Food City banner. Southeastern Grocers would likely use proceeds from the deal to reduce debt. That effectively ended Southeastern Grocers' presence in the Tennessee market.
In October 2015, Southeastern Grocers laid off 250 workers at its support offices in a move said to improve efficiency and invest in service and value for customers. The cuts took place at Southeastern's Jacksonville, Florida headquarters and regional support centers. Store employees were not affected.
In June 2016, Southeastern Grocers converted a Winn-Dixie location in Hialeah, Florida to Fresco y Más, which features an expanded Hispanic product assortment, a full-service Latin butcher shop, and Cocina. In December 2016, an additional five South Florida Winn-Dixie locations in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties were converted to the Fresco y Más banner. In March 2017, Southeastern converted another 5 South Florida Winn-Dixie locations throughout Miami and Hialeah, Florida to the Fresco y Más brand. In celebration of Fresco y Más' first anniversary in June 2017, another 7 Winn-Dixie locations were converted in Miami, Hialeah, and Hollywood, Florida, include the banner's first Broward County store, to bring the total number of Fresco y Más supermarkets to 18.
In May 2017, Southeastern Grocers announced the closing of 23 locations along with the elimination of some department lead roles at stores.
In June 2017, Southeastern announced that President and CEO Ian McLeod was leaving the company to pursue another opportunity. On August 10, 2017, Southeastern Grocers announced that it had appointed Anthony Hucker as President and CEO, effective immediately. Anthony, who had joined Southeastern Grocers in February 2016, had served as Interim President and CEO since July 1, 2017, following McLeod's departure.
In February 2018, it was reported that Southeastern Grocers is under more than $1 billion in debt and was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection. Southeastern is planning to shut down up to 200 stores as part of the process. Later that same month, it was announced that Southeastern was selling eight Winn-Dixie locations in south Louisiana to Texas based, Brookshire Grocery Company as well as an additional three Mississippi and four New Orleans market locations to Baton Rouge based, Shoppers Value Foods.
On March 15, 2018 Southeastern Grocers announced that they will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and close 94 stores.
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Mergers and acquisitions
Winn-Dixie
On December 19, 2011, it was announced that BI-LO and Winn-Dixie would merge to create an organization with some 690 grocery stores and 63,000 employees in eight states throughout the southeastern United States. BI-LO purchased Winn-Dixie for US$530 million, and operates Winn-Dixie as a subsidiary with those stores maintaining the Winn-Dixie name. The merged company is based at Winn-Dixie's former headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. In early 2013, BI-LO phased out its own private label soft drinks in its BI-LO stores in favor of the "Chek" brand used by Winn-Dixie.
Delhaize Group
On May 28, 2013, it was announced that BI-LO was acquiring the Harveys, Sweetbay, and Reid's banners from Delhaize Group for $265 million. Upon completion of the transaction, BI-LO rebranded all Sweetbay stores as Winn-Dixie stores, and all Reid's stores as BI-LO stores, while keeping the Harveys name for those stores.
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Stores
In September 2013, Southeastern Grocers announced an agreement to buy 22 supermarkets in South Carolina and Georgia from the Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. Inc. for $35 million. One Piggly Wiggly store in Lexington, South Carolina was closed due to close proximity to other BI-LO stores.
That same month, BI-LO announced they entered into an agreement to sell seven BI-LO branded stores in the Charlotte market to Publix: the stores are located in Charlotte, NC, Huntersville, NC, Matthews, NC, Lake Wylie, SC, and Rock Hill, SC.
Banners
- Winn Dixie (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi)
- BI-LO (Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina)
- Harveys (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina)
- Fresco y Más (Florida)
References
External links
- Southeastern Grocers Official website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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