Topic: How To Invest

Spinoffs, Takeovers and Special Situations Hotline – Friday, June 8, 2018

Article Excerpt

SUPERVALU INC., $20.45, symbol SVU on New York, is a Minneapolis-based company that operates retail grocery stores and also acts as a wholesale distributor to independent grocers. Blackwells Capital, a New York-based special situations investment firm, owns 7.3% of SuperValu. It’s now pressing the company to give it six seats on its nine-member board. The activist investor also believes SuperValu should be split into two separate companies, with the retail business then sold off. It also wants a new management team put in place to expand the wholesale business. Blackwells’s proposed board members have wholesale, logistics and grocery-store business experience. SuperValu has already undertaken some measures aimed at generating shareholder value. They include selling 21 of its 38 Farm Fresh stores to a trio of grocery-store chains on May 3, 2018. The company has also sold and leased back seven of its distribution centres. In the quarter ended February 24, 2018, SuperValu’s revenues increased 42.1%, to $3.6 billion from $2.5 billion a year earlier…