<p>With Safeway recently confirming that it is engaged in discussions regarding a potential sale of the company, possible suitors are coming out of the woodwork. Current buzz names Kroger as a possible candidate for the Safeway acquisition.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Safeway is reportedly talking with buyout firms Cerberus Capital Management LP, CVC Capital Partners Ltd., and Leonard Green & Partners LP, according to a report in Bloomberg.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>Antony Karabus, President of SD Retail Consulting LLC, said that, in addition to Cerberus and other PE firms, a deal with Kroger could also make sense, according to The Street.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">"Kroger is fantastic at absorbing companies and they're an unbelievably well-run company," he noted.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">KDVR reported that industry insiders say Kroger, who owns King Sooper’s, could change the way consumers shop in Colorado with if they were to acquire Safeway; as it would create one company that could control approximately 60 percent of the grocery market in Colorado.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Kroger is one of the strongest suitors at the moment, Darrin Duber-Smith, a Marketing Professor at Metro State had suggested.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>“It would be a pretty epic merger in the grocery industry,” Duber-Smith said. “If you have one company controlling 55-60 percent of the market, they’re going to control pricing. And so the theory says the prices will go up and quality will go down.”</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>The Denver Business Journal reported the same possibilities, as such a move would combine Colorado's two largest traditional supermarket chains. </p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>On the other hand, Kroger just completed a $2.5 billion purchase of Harris Teeter last month.It’s still positioned financially to do another deal, said Jeff Thomison, an Analyst at Hilliard Lyons, was quoted in the Cincinnati Business Courier.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">“But it would have to be the right place and right time,” he said. “I’m not sure that Safeway is either of those.”<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Thomison said it’s rare to see companies do back-to-back acquisitions of that size and though Kroger has completed the acquisition of Harris Teeter, the company is still working on integrating the two.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we follow the possible sale of Safeway.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p><a class="btn btn-sm btn-primary col-lg-12" style="white-space: normal;" href="http://www.safeway.com/ShopStores/Investors.page#iframetop" target="_new"> Safeway </a></p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
