And again the only reason I keep bringing up the hire is that you don't spend money like that if you aren't committed. They could find a phone-it-in leadership group of rookie new MBA grads and bombed out ex 99¢, BB&B and so on execs and pay 99% less for them to run a dumping of these stores if they just want to cash out. No need to pay for experience or effort, you really just take offers and call liquidators then pay yourself.storewanderer wrote: ↑July 18th, 2024, 12:27 amUnless C&S gets full rights and ownership to the name Safeway they will not have the ability to "franchise" the name. Or license it. Or anything of that nature. Sobeys can do that since they own the rights to the name entirely in Canada.ClownLoach wrote: ↑July 17th, 2024, 11:41 pmThey're not franchising. They have already told employees they're building an ex Albertsons leadership team to run the stores. My guess is just the COO they hired is going to be paid well in excess of $10 Million per year as she obviously got a raise to come over, her bonuses are probably much more. You could go to a biz school graduation and hire a bozo with a freshly minted MBA for a hundred grand to sell everything off, franchise it, piecemeal it out. No reason to get a big shot exec who makes more than CEOs of many retailers if they're not interested in actually running these. The spend alone is a real commitment and God only knows how long her contract is with C&S, could be a hundred million or more with years and golden parachute.
They obviously want to form a cohesive subsidiary and sell it off as a whole or IPO it. They can make more money selling the entire system versus the pieces. This is why I expect they'll sell off outer fringes so they're all core markets with manageable clusters of stores, to make it more appealing to buyers and investors. You don't hire big shot executives for crappy little projects like franchising these out and walking away would be.
I'm not sure the COO will be paid more by C&S; she made the thorny comment referring to Kroger as "the enemy" and must think that comment being made public in FTC documents will not be a comment that will lead to a positive future career with Kroger. I think we will see some other of the old Albertsons LLC recruits (the ones who are still around in Albertsons at this point, which are fewer and fewer) also happily go over to C&S. But that is very good- for C&S. Getting the right people in there will help this venture. And many of the stores they are getting do require a certain degree of talent to operate.
I highly doubt that calling Kroger the enemy would close any doors besides that one. I've heard much worse from C-Suite execs that haven't had any difficulty finding jobs. And I've seen people who were "the enemy" proudly welcomed on board.
Her salary at Albertsons was $7M per year and as you know C-Suite folks get far more in stock and bonus than salary. Her experience as COO of a $80B firm would qualify her to be the CEO of probably hundreds of retailers and other firms. Don't believe for one second that she is taking this on as a charity case or fears unemployment. She surely is getting paid very well and could have gone anywhere, probably even larger firms for even more money.
