Albertsons Sets IPO Proceeds at $1.84 Billion

Albertsons Cos. Inc. will seek to generate $1.84 billion in an initial public offering that’s been in the offing since early July, according to regulatory documents filed this week. Having received approval to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the publicly-traded ticker symbol, ABS, the Boise-based chain has still not yet specified the timing, number of shares set to hit the trading floor and the estimated price per share.

The 2,205-store Albertsons initially filed the registration statement for a $100 million IPO nearly three months ago on July 8, 2015, as a starting point to calculate registration fees, which has since expanded to $1.84 billion, per its recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

As PG previously reported, Albertsons said it plans to use the IPO proceeds to pay down debt and fund other corporate initiatives. It also has plans to open new stores and upgrade others, including related recent news that it will open eight new and replacement stores in 2015 and remodel a total of 115 existing stores across most of its operating divisions.

Goldman Sachs & Co., BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Lazard are acting as underwriters to the IPO, which comes about 10 months after Albertsons completed the acquisition of Safeway in a $9.4 billion deal in early 2015.

Albertsons is currently executing an annual synergy plan of about $800 million from the acquisition of Safeway, which it expects to achieve by the end of fiscal 2018, with associated one-time costs of about $690 million.