Personnel Updates:
Casey’s General Stores, Inc. reported that the Board of Directors elected Terry W. Handley to serve as President of the Company, effective immediately. Mr. Handley will continue to serve in the role as Chief Operating Officer.
Food Marketing Institute has appointed Rick Stein to the new position of VP of fresh foods.
FreshDirect announced the appointment of Michael A. Brizel to the role of Exec VP and General Counsel.
Kings Food Market has named Jeff Binder VP of Center Store, with responsibility for the grocery, dairy and frozen food departments as well as the nonfood and beauty departments.
Natural Markets Food Group, parent of the Mrs. Green’s Natural Markets chain, is expected to name a new CEO shortly to replace Robin Michel.
New Seasons Market COO Pat Brown has resigned from the company, and will become the CEO of Mrs. Green’s Natural Markets, based in Westchester County in New York State.
Sprouts Farmers Market has appointed Nancy LaMons as Chief Human Resources Officer.
Topco Associates said that Linda Severin has joined the company as VP of Marketing.
Financial Focus:
Casey’s General Stores reported fiscal 2014 sales of $7.840 billion.
Fairway Group Holdings Corp. the parent company of Fairway Market announced financial results for its fiscal 2014 ended March 30, 2014 of $775.9 million.
Mi Pueblo announced that it had emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy after an injection of $56 million from Victory Park Capital. Mi Pueblo plans to use the financing to deepen its presence in the Hispanic market, improve customer service and implement competitive pricing strategies. The retailer also named industry veteran Javier Ramirez as its new president and CEO, replacing Mi Pueblo’s founder Juvenal Chavez, who will fill the role of chairman.
Industry Insight:
Kroger has a new Community Rewards program allows shoppers to direct the company’s charitable donations by linking their loyalty cards to nonprofit organizations in their communities. The company has an annual fund of $4 million that’s divided quarterly and apportioned to charities based on how many loyalty cards are linked to the organizations rather than to how much money each shopper spends.
Real Estate:
Bi-Lo Holdings said that six Reid’s Grocery stores in South Carolina closed and reopened June 6 under the Bi-Lo banner.
Save Mart will close its southeast Fresno, CA, store and convert it to a FoodMaxx store.
Mergers & Acquisitions:
B&R Stores has reached an agreement with Skag-Way Discount Department Stores to purchase both Skagway stores in Grand Island, NE.
Marathon Petroleum will acquire the retail operations of Hess for $2.87 billion, which consists of $2.37 billion in cash, an estimated $230 million of working capital and $274 million of capital leases. The deal will be arranged under subsidiary Speedway LLC to expand Marathon’s retail operations from nine states to 23 states along the coast and in the Southeast. The transaction is expected to close late in this year’s third quarter, assuming regulatory approvals are obtained. Once the deal is complete, Speedway will have 2,733 company-owned stores, enough to become the second-largest c-store operator in the United States.
