Southeastern Grocers

Southeastern Grocers LLC
Formerly called
 Bi-Lo Holdings
Private
Industry Retail (Grocery)
Founded 2012
Headquarters Jacksonville, Florida, United States
Number of locations
 802 (as of December 2014).[1]
Area served
 Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina
Products Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor
Revenue $11.5 billion USD (2014)[1]
Owner Lone Star Funds
Number of employees
 72,000 (as of December 2014)[2]
Website segrocers.com

Southeastern Grocers LLC (formerly Bi-Lo Holdings) is a supermarket portfolio headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. The portfolio was created by Lone Star Funds in September 2013 as the new parent company for BI-LO, Harveys, and Winn-Dixie.

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 LLC into a separate company to be based out of Birmingham.[3] 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.[4]

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.[5][6] 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.[7] 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.[8]

On May 12, 2010, the company emerged from bankruptcy protection, under a plan approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of South Carolina.[9] BI-LO, a Supermarket News Top 75 Retailer for 2010, remains under ownership of Lone Star Funds after restructuring.[10][11] BI-LO was reportedly put up for sale in August 2010; Kroger and Publix were said to be interested in acquiring the chain,[12] but nothing ever developed from these rumors.

In September 2013, Southeastern Grocers Inc. 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.[13][14] On August 19, 2014 Southeastern Grocers withdrew their IPO filing with the SEC, aborting the process of listing the stock for public sale.[15]

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. This effectively ends Southeastern Grocers' presence in the Tennessee market.[16]

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.[17]

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.[18] BI-LO will purchase Winn-Dixie for USD$530 million, and operate Winn-Dixie as a subsidiary with its stores maintaining the Winn-Dixie name. It was later announced that the merged company would be based at Winn-Dixie's former headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida.[19] 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 USD$265 million.[20] 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, Bi-Lo Holdings, LLC announced an agreement to buy 22 supermarkets in South Carolina and Georgia from the Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. Inc. for $35 million.[21] One Piggly Wiggly store in Lexington, South Carolina was closed due to close proximity to other BI-LO stores.[22]

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.[23]

Banners

References

  1. 1 2 "Bi-Lo Holdings 2015". SupermarketNews.com. Retrieved 2015-06-20.
  2. ↑ "What is Southeastern Grocers?". segrocers.com. Retrieved 2015-06-20.
  3. ↑ Execs leave Bi-Lo; Bruno's spun off, Chattanooga Times Free Press March 21, 2007
  4. ↑ Local BI-LO Warehouses Closing, The Chattanoogan April 16, 2007
  5. ↑ "Bi-Lo Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy". SupermarketNews.com. 2009-03-24. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  6. ↑ http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090324/BUSINESS/303240002&s=d&page=2[]
  7. ↑ Delhaize To Buy $425M Worth Of Assets From BI-LO Archived December 2, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ "Bi-Lo plan excludes Food Lion deal". Charlotte Business Journal. November 24, 2009. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  9. ↑ "Bi-Lo Emerges From Chapter 11". SupermarketNews.com. 2010-05-13. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  10. ↑ "Bi-Lo Emerges From Chapter 11". SupermarketNews.com. 2010-05-13. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  11. ↑ "SN's Top 75 Retailers for 2010". SupermarketNews.com. 2009-12-15. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  12. ↑ Bi-Lo on the Block: Source, Supermarket News August 10, 2010
  13. ↑ Timberlake, Cotten (2013-09-26). "Southeastern Grocers Files to Raise $500 Million in U.S. IPO". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
  14. ↑ "Winn-Dixie operator Southeastern Grocers files for $500 million IPO". Reuters.com. 2013-09-26. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
  15. ↑ "Re: Southeastern Grocers, LLC — Withdrawal of Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-191389)". August 19, 2014.
  16. ↑ "K-VA-T to buy, convert Bi-Lo in Chattanooga". SupermarketNews.com. 2015-07-23. Retrieved 2015-07-29.
  17. ↑ "Southeastern Grocers confirms 250 layoffs". SupermarketNews.com. 2015-10-02. Retrieved 2015-10-03.
  18. ↑ "Bi‐Lo And Winn‐Dixie Agree To Merge". BI-LO. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  19. ↑ Egan, Matt (2011-12-19). "BI-LO Buys Winn-Dixie for $530 Million; Deal Translates to 75% Premium". Fox Business. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  20. ↑ Grocery wars: Tampa's Sweetbay sold to Winn-Dixie parent Tampa Bay Times, May 28, 2013
  21. ↑ Transaction Fact Sheet ThePig.net, September 12, 2013
  22. ↑ One of 22 stores Bi-Lo is buying from Piggly Wiggly is closing The Post and Courier, October 10, 2013
  23. ↑ Publix and Bi-Lo Holdings Announce Sale of Seven BI-LO Stores in the Carolinas Publix.com, September 13, 2013

External links

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