Dive Brief:

• Safeway yesterday confirmed what market followers have long suspected — the supermarket chain is looking to sell. 
• The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company, which operates the Safeway, Vons, and Pavilllion chains, announced it had entered formal talks with an unnamed suitor. That suitor was widely believed to be Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that owns the Jewel-Osco empire. 
• If Cerberus, which also controls supermarket chains such as Albertsons and Shaw's, takes control of Safeway it would create a retailing monolith that would dominate 12 of the 15 largest markets in America.

Dive Insight:

By late in the day, Reuters had confirmed Cerberus was involved. Bloomberg reported that others are involved in the talks too —​ including the investment groups that co-own big-box wholesale chain BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Back when rumors of this deal first emerged in October, we made our displeasure known. Safeway is worth some $8 billion. If Cerberus is to take over the company, it will do so by issuing debt — such a deal would likely be the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis began.

As we said in October, saddling Safeway with billions of dollars in debt, and reducing competition in the vast majority of the major U.S. markets, "would be a great deal for shareholders and investment bankers. For the employees and customers? Probably not so much."