Tops to Sell P&C Stores to Former Penn Traffic Officers

Tops Markets LLC has applied to the Federal Trade Commission for the go-ahead to sell three P&C stores to Hometown Markets LLC, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based group consisting of former officers of The Penn Traffic Co., P&C's onetime parent company, according to a published report.

Williamsville, N.Y.-based Tops has to sell seven supermarkets in five geographic markets in New York and Pennsylvania in accordance with a proposed FTC order settling charges that the grocer’s January 2010 acquisition of Penn Traffic’s assets after that company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy would be anticompetitive, the Ithaca Journal said, noting that Tops has two other P&C supermarkets in the Ithaca area.

In its application, Tops said it proposed to sell supermarkets formerly owned by Penn Traffic in Ithaca; Cortland, N.Y.; and Sayre, Pa. to Hometown Markets, under an asset purchase agreement dated May 2.

Gregory Young, Myles L. da Cunha and Eric J. Sattler, all once leading executives at Penn Traffic, are the officers of Hometown Markets.

The FTC is accepting public comments on the application until June 6, after which it will decide whether to OK the sales.