MINNEAPOLIS, MN - After Blackwells Capital ousted SuperValu for failing to acknowledge shareholder demands earlier this year, the retailer announced this week it will be reorganizing its corporate structure into a holding company structure as a means to “facilitate strategic transformation, among other benefits to stockholders.”
“We have been executing a strategic transformation of our business over the last two years to become the wholesale supplier of choice for grocery retailers across the United States, while also executing initiatives to deliver long-term stockholder value,” said SuperValu’s President and CEO Mark Gross. “The proposed holding company structure is another significant and important undertaking by our team that would support and advance our transformation by further separating our wholesale and retail operations in a tax efficient manner.”
According to a press release, the proposal, as outlined in SuperValu’s preliminary proxy statement/prospects filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday June 12, 2018, includes the holding company structure as follows:
- Organize and further segregate SuperValu’s wholesale and retail operations in an operationally efficient and strategic manner, including to separate the wholesale and retail operations held by SuperValu’s current public company entity
- Facilitate SuperValu’s previously announced strategic transformation plan to sell certain retail assets to third parties
- Better segregate SuperValu’s liabilities into their respective business segments
- Increase SuperValu’s strategic, business, and financial flexibility
- Enable SuperValu to achieve its strategic transformation plan in a tax efficient manner that may facilitate the ability to utilize a material portion of SuperValu’s capital loss carryforward, which could generate approximately $300 million of cash tax benefits for the company over the next 15 years
At the upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, SuperValu’s stockholders will be able to vote on the Holding Company Proposal.
Will SuperValu’s restructuring efforts satisfy shareholders like Blackwells Capital? AndNowUKnow will continue to report.
