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Sobeys to sell Canmore store

Sobeys Inc. is set to sell 23 stores in Western Canada, including its Canmore grocery outlet. The sale is the result of a consent agreement the company came to with the Competition Bureau of Canada in order to go through with a $5.

Sobeys Inc. is set to sell 23 stores in Western Canada, including its Canmore grocery outlet.

The sale is the result of a consent agreement the company came to with the Competition Bureau of Canada in order to go through with a $5.8 billion purchase of Safeway Canada.

The Competition Bureau conducted an extensive review of the proposed acquisition of Safeway Canada by Sobeys and concluded it would likely result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition in the retail supply of a full line of grocery products in certain areas like Canmore.

“I am confident this agreement will ensure that Canadian consumers continue to benefit from competitive prices for a wide selection of grocery products,” said John Pecman, Commissioner of Competition. “I commend the parties for their stellar cooperation with the bureau throughout our review of the proposed transaction.”

Andrew Walker, vice-president of communications and corporate affairs for Sobeys, said the company will seek to sell the 23 stores in a timely manner and expects the acquisition of Safeway to be complete in early November.

“Obviously, those two stores serve the same market. The Competition Bureau identified certain local markets of concern, Canmore being one of them, that had to be addressed and remedied and we made a series of proposals to address those concerns with all the markets across Western Canada and the consent agreement is the outcome of that process,” Walker said. “I think it is important to emphasize that Canmore is a great store, as are all of our stores we are going to be divesting, and we expect there will be interest from other grocery retailers.

“The consent agreement is very clear; we have to sell these stores as viable grocery stores, so even though it won’t be a Sobeys, it will be run by a viable grocery retailer because the whole point is the competition bureau wants to maintain competition in the grocery market.”

The assets for sale in Canmore do not include the liquor store outlet, however, Walker said he does not know at this time how services within specific stores, like the Canada Post and Tim Hortons, will be affected.

As for the future of the Canmore Safeway once it is owned by Sobeys, he said at this time no decisions have been made.

“We have not made any decisions on branding of our stores – that is something that will be done in due course with the integration process,” Walker said. “As you can imagine, integrating 200 plus stores into our network is going to be a big job and the branding is one of the issues we look at, but it is not out of the gate going to be the No. 1 issue.”

Mergers in Canada are subject to review by the Competition Bureau under the Competition Act to ensure they will not result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition.

Sobeys announced the purchase of Safeway Canada in June, which includes 213 grocery retail locations and 199 in-store pharmacies, 62 fuel locations, 10 liquor stores, four primary distribution centres and related wholesale business and 12 food manufacturing facilities.


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