Thursday, June 8, 2006

Albertsons to close 100 stores in 5 states

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Albertsons LLC, the supermarket chain partly controlled by private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, said Wednesday it plans to close 100 stores, or about 16 percent of its locations, because they are unprofitable.

The grocer will shut 37 stores in Northern California, 30 in Texas, 16 in Colorado, nine in Arizona and eight in Florida, spokeswoman Stacia Levenfeld said. The stores are expected to be closed by early August.

The new Albertsons LLC was formed by a group including Cerberus, Kimco Realty Corp. and other firms after they agreed in January to buy 661 stores from Albertsons Inc. Buyout firms are buying retailers for the value of their real estate and to cut their costs and boost their revenue before selling the operations to other companies or offering shares to the public.

"The biggest potential sales benefit from the store closures is Safeway, who holds the leading share positions in the Northern California markets where most store closures are slated, although it should also benefit from closures in Colorado and, to a lesser degree, Texas," Robert Summers, a New York-based analyst at Bear Stearns & Co. who has an "outperform" rating on Safeway Inc., wrote in a note.

The investment firms, Supervalu Inc. and CVS Corp. acquired Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons Inc. for about $17.4 billion in stock, cash and debt and split the company into three parts.

Safeway, the third-largest U.S. supermarket chain, may pick up as much as $175 million in sales from the closings, Summers wrote. Kroger Co., the biggest grocery company, is expected to gain as much as $70 million in revenue, mostly in Colorado.

Supervalu, owner of the Save-A-Lot chain, bought more than 1,100 Albertsons stores to become the second-largest U.S. grocer. CVS Corp., the No. 2 drugstore firm, acquired all of Albertsons 700 stand-alone drugstores.

Larry Johnston was so overwhelmed and overpaid being CEO that it appeared he hired (only the best) qualified people just to respond to letters written to him....as seen below:

Below represents favorable feedback, submitted by members of UFCW, about the new contract that was supposedly overwhelmingly voted for.  These comments were published in UFCW's Voice newsletter that comes out periodically.  What most members of UFCW didn't realize is that all of the comments below were submitted by paid Vice Presidents of UFCW.  Jack Loveall and company tried to give the impression that these comments were made by unbiased members whom were overly excited by the new contract.

All of the comments above belong to paid Vice Presidents of UFCW.

Just when you think they can't get any slimier at Love-all-land, they do!

When Larry Johnston was selected by a grocery genius to become the CEO of Albertsons', it appeared that one of the first ideas that Mr. Johnston incorporated into the brains of his losing team of incompetent management personnel, was the idea that there are "no sacred cows at Albertsons'."  Which meant that if there was a store (or division of stores) that wasn't making money or considered a core asset, it would be disposed of.  Mr. Johnston didn't have a clue on how to make any grocery store profitable, so he thought he would establish himself as a mighty force within a company by making such great statements such as these.  The cow you see below is an actual image that Albertsons' used in one of their quarterly reports investor conference calls.  I think the only sacred cow at Albertsons turned out to be Mr. Johnston himself.  He was more worthless than any losing Albertsons' store or division of losing Albertsons' stores.

At one time, Larry Johnston personally called all the store directors in Northern California and asked them if they could eliminate additional hours off of their schedule to help reduce labor.  Labor at Albertsons' was already tight and lean.  It is my opinion that the only reason Larry Johnston wanted additional hours cut from the schedule was solely to benefit himself because his bonuses and other incentives were based on company performance.  Larry Johnston didn't have a clue on how grocery stores operated, so why would this man take the time to contact all store directors to cut more hours off their schedule?  That request from Mr. Johnston made it possible for some store employees to receive less money and also it would be tougher for them to pay their bills, along with the fact that with reduced labor, filling empty shelves and serving customers would be affected too.  Mr. Johnston and the rest of Albertsons' overpaid assholes didn't have to worry about paying their bills.  Below is a good example of how Albertsons' competed against their low cost competitors:

If Albertsons' is stepping up for service, why wouldn't stepped up service be available in all stores?  This Einstein advertisement went on for many weeks.  It is just mind boggling that Larry Johnston was being paid millions of dollars for this kind of nonsense embarrassing all Albertsons' Associates publicly.  Below is that same statement in a readable size:

The statement above indicates that if Albertsons' sees more than 3 customers in line, they will do their best to open the next available register....Well, I guess when you run most of your customers over to your competitors, eventually you can make these kinds of promises because the chance of seeing more than 3 customers in line at an Albertsons' store isn't very good.  Lucky Stores used this same gimmick too.  It appeared like a fraudulent way to speak dumb to your customers.

From: Jon Springer

To: truth@raleysexposed.com

Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 1:02 PM

Subject: ABS lawsuit

Hello,

I am an editor at Supermarket News and wish to confirm whether the "Frank Nordby" identified at the Raleysexposed website and the "Frank Nordby" identified in the recent lawsuit against Albertsons are the same people. Please respond at this address at your earliest opportunity. Thanks.

Jon Springer

________________________________
JON SPRINGER
Associate Editor, Retail/Financial
Supermarket News
750 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10017

(212) 630-3755
(212) 630-3768 (fax)

July 29, 2006

Dear Jon Springer,

You will probably wonder why I took so long to respond to you.  The reason it did take me so long to respond to you is because I felt your email to me was inappropriate.  How dare you contact me through my web site which basically tells the story about my dad and his unbelievable experience in the grocery business.  Jon, your employer (Supermarket News), Progressive Grocer, and many other news media outlets know of  this story about my dad and what he did for the Raley company located in Sacramento, California. 

Jon, why were you interested in finding out if I was the Frank Nordby connected with the "Raleysexposed" web site and the same Frank Nordby identified in a lawsuit filed against Albertsons'?  Why did that matter to you?  Your supermarket newspaper never reported on the "raleysexposed" story and my question to you is "why haven't you?"  Did the Supermarket News report the story about Frank Nordby, Sacramento Grocery Clerk, suing Albertsons' after your email to me?  If you didn't, why didn't you?  Jon, I don't need the news media's attention and they (those in the news media who know me) go out of their way to make sure I don't get their attention.  Jon, I don't need the Supermarket News attention.  I wasn't looking for attention in this matter-only justice.  Jon, I get all the attention I need from my web site "raleysexposed.com"

Jon, when you, and all those connected to the news media find time to develop good ethics, it will be then that the news media gives my dad the attention that he deserved and never got because his story embarrassed the #1 supermarket chain in America---according to the consumers that responded to Consumer Reports Magazine and their survey of the #1 grocery store chain in America.

Have a good day Jon.  Oh, by the way, this was the earliest I could respond to your arrogant email to me.  In fact, this email to you has become part of my web site under the albertsons page.

 

Frank Nordby

 

Below is a "letter to the editor" written to the Sacramento Bee newspaper.  It was written by an Albertsons' employee who wanted to give the public another perspective on an article written by the Bee where State investigators found a lot of scan errors while checking out Albertsons' scanning.  This was the only employee who came to Albertsons' defense concerning Albertsons' pathetic scan department.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Albertsons' in Northern California couldn't make a profit.  Albertsons' was either giving away their profits through their "free if it scans higher than the self price program" or they were pleasing their shoppers with outrageous lower prices than what the item was priced on the shelf.  Had Albertsons' been operated by professional people (which didn't include Larry Johnston) they would have fired every incompetent executive in their Northern California's operation. It is my belief that the only reason any executive in Northern California obtained their job is because they kissed ass to the ass above their position.  Albertsons' was loaded from top to bottom with asses...It's no wonder why Albertsons' "everyday low price" on items that weren't on sale were so high.  It appears that Albertsons' was trying to recover their scan losses by raising their prices on all of their items.  Then these brainless idiots running Albertsons' Northern California stores couldn't figure out why their shoppers were shopping at their competitors-----duh,  lower prices.

Albertsons' scan department was an embarrassing pathetic joke...In fact, in my opinion, the only person qualified to do a scan coordinators job was somebody who had taken a large dose of LSD and didn't mind going around in circles all day long.  There was one aspect of Albertsons scan & pricing which in my opinion was designed solely to cheat their honest customers.  It appeared to me that Albertsons price changes were done in such a way as to make sure that there were fewer items on sale during the busy weekend than the slower week days.  It was overall just one messed up department where there weren't any incentives as an employee of Albertsons' to do this tedious, unorganized, and sloppy method for changing prices.  Albertsons' paid the scan coordinator the same wages as they did the cashier checkers and you couldn't find one competent store director (because they were all incompetent) capable of doing this asinine job properly.  The store directors just closed their blind eyes to the stores pricing mess and tried to give the impression to their customers that things are "right on" in his or her store. 

Below represents an Albertsons' email that was sent to all of Albertsons' scan coordinators.  Albertsons had a terrible scan issue where hundreds of general merchandise items were scanning wrong for days in probably all of Albertsons' Northern California stores.  As far as I know, only one scan coordinator caught this problem before he went home on Friday. And Frank Nordby discovered the problem before he saw the email.  His incompetent store director didn't even have the decency to thank him...In fact, not one store director had the competency to do a scan coordinators job.  They were only good for going around and finding dirt on store shelves or mirrors. 

It should be noted that the email that was sent to the scan coordinators, after they had already left the store for the day, indicated there may be a few errors.  Yeah right.  There were hundreds....and knowing how most store directors didn't give a shit about pricing, not one of them probably did a thing over the weekend to solve their pricing issues other than to make sure they honored their scan guarantee program.  They just put the scanning email in the scan coordinators mail box for when the scan clerk came back to work on Monday. 

Bunch of Phucking goofballs.....

That's OK though, Albertsons' rewarded Larry Johnston with millions of dollars in compensation.   

Swift never responded to the 2nd bright idea sent to them.  However, they did respond to the stores about a new home owner program a couple of months later.  I guess it became embarrassing to Albertsons' to maybe find out that they were the only chain of stores in Sacramento not welcoming the new home owners to the area.  Swift must have sent the idea above to somebody at Albertsons' and then that person just tweaked the above 2nd bright idea and created the letter below and sent it to the other stores.  Albertsons' hasn't changed a bit since Albertson's #109 in Boise, Idaho in 1974 when dishonesty was the common denominator.

Below is an email sent to Albertsons' President (if you want to call her that) of Northern California.  I personally believe that people like her and the many others in executive positions had no idea how to compete to operate stores at a profit.