What would happen if the the sisters or even one of them decide to get out and sell their shares to Artie T? wonder if that would be enough to get controlling shares and then just neuter Artie S?

From what I read, Artie T holds 49.5% interest in the company now. He doesn't need much more to put him back in the driver's seat.

It would only make sense to me that every one in the MB family can look up and see two very large birds circling overhead. Shaw's own's 155 stores with over 30,000 employees, Hannaford is owned by an American subsidiary of of the Belguim Delhaize Group, who owns 1,100 stores along the eastern seaboard and in 2013 sold 104 Sweetbay Supermarket locations in Fla. My guess is that they have some pretty deep pockets! One would think that the biggest loss so far in this story is the value of the company. It could be that ASD eventually entertains an offer from one of the big supermarket giants rather than to turn it over to his cousin! I'm sure the circling birds must have a number in thier head ! You don't even have to beat the competition, just let it beat itself. Many times the key to success is good timing. Just Sayin!

I don't think any of the big companies would touch this with a ten foot pole. Without Artie T running it, it's like being elected the President of Iraq, really not worth the trouble your buying into.

For local competition, why touch MB? At this point why buy out the "competition" when it's internal strife is booming your business and it's not costing you a dime to benefit from it. If anything you can bet they are all cheering for this to never end anytime soon.

.....ok.....here's what's really important to me ...... was back to the Meredith Hannaford's yesterday and danged if they still was totally out of the 1.59 can of sliced peaches!!! omg !!!!....... and in my mind, I truly believe that Market Basket is responsible here .....and no I will not buy the 2.29 Delmonte sliced peaches ...... so's I made a very very tough decision and went with the 1.59 can of pear halves instead!

Here is my question: Why do canned pears come in halves but never in slices similar to sliced peaches........anybody?

...by the way....talking about local supermarkets....has anyone else noticed that Hannaford's seems to be better than the Plymouth Wal-Mart when it comes to price-quality-selection-convenience-check out...plus Hannaford's has the Laconia Daily Sun.

...the employee position of "meat cutter" does not exist at Wal-Marts in the United States as of the year 2000 due to a Wal-Mart labor dispute in Johnson City, Texas. They fired all the meat cutters as opposed to going union meat cutter, and designed a "packaged-frozen-shipped from East Jalopy, Iowa" packaged meats dept, and their hamburger is really pretty good, too, plus it comes in these unique tubular plastic packs like a big baloni except it is hamburger.

...I believe the State of Vermont has 3 Wal-Mart stores, while the State of New Hampshire has 32 Wal-Mart stores plus one Wal-Mart distribution-transport hub.

What people are not seeing is the real-estate deal that is worth way more than the grocery store chain. Do you think Art S is worried? I don't.
On a side note ANYBODY seen Art T?? You think he would show his face to all of his supporters at the stores or the two big rallies.
I have a friend who is a driver for them and 3 children and 2 brothers who also work for MB. I know he and his brothers stand to lose a lot as drivers but must believe in what they are doing.
I am a supporter of this and my friends willingness to fight what they believe in and will not shop there till he returns.

Remember without truck drivers and warehouse workers this county would be at a standstill!!!
Just my .02

They do come in slices as the below image illustrates:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Del-Monte-....5-Oz/10295160

Thanks goodness we solved that huge problem.:eek:

Hanaford's Help
 

Interesting, I was wondering where they all came from all of a sudden. Just went to the Nashua store, there were three workers just going in, they said two are from NY stores and one was from Maine.
Both places with low MB footprints.

Makes sense, no sense hiring a bunch of locals only to let them go later.

Why not buy it when value of the company is at an all time low, Operate as a MB and control the whole market. Eliminate the competition completely. You might think that no body would touch this with a ten foot pole, but where are you going shop when this is over? If ASD maintains control cuts employees beneifits and raises prices than what seperates MB from everyone else. At that point I'd go to the store that is the most convenient. I'm sure the competition is loving the effect it is having on thier business and I bet they would love to see it stay that way. But we know that's not going to happen. We can get by with a lot of things in life but canned peaches are a must! We will only be left with a few choices, no matter who owns the stores. ATD and ASD have become house hold names around here but like after any war, eventually every body will go back about their daily lives and grocery shopping is part of that. I guess I was thinking this is economics 101, and when the competitor goes into a wobble you move in for the kill. I doubt that these international companies are interested in local concerns. Just throwing something else out there!

T and his family own more of the real estate than S and his cronies. That being said, it was the root cause of all of this, S and his side feel that they are being cheated on that end. If the company does fold, they will both own empty stores. T has the experience, knowledge, skill and available work force to start over again. S has no idea how to run a grocery store, which is pretty obvious at this point.

That's news to most of us I think.
How does T come to own most of the real estate?
I always thought most of the real estate was company owned? Not by T personally or his side of the family.
If true, then that does sort of put a different light on things, no wonder S would be mad.

SHAREHOLDERS ALIGNED WITH ARTHUR T. DEMOULAS
Ownership stake: 49.5 percent
The children of Telemachus Demoulas:
Arthur T. Demoulas
Frances D. Kettenbach
Glorianne D. Farnham
Caren D. Pasquale

SHAREHOLDERS ALIGNED WITH ARTHUR S. DEMOULAS
Ownership stake: 50.5 percent
The children of George Demoulas
Arthur S. Demoulas
Diana D. Merriam
Fotene J. Demoulas

Very true but nothing happens without consumers

Rusty you confuse me. Somewhere in one of your past posts I recall you stating you were about as liberal as they come. I on the other hand am fairly conservative. You are against Market Basket labor as you note above. I on the other hand cannot be more supportive. How can a lefty not love Artie T, his position and what he means to these employees? Doesn't the left want the 1 percent to share their bounty, reinvest in their businesses and have good relations with labor? Isn't, that what is happening here? In spades? Why are you throwing in the towel on Market Basket labor and effectively pulling for the guy who is going to extract significant capital from the company via a massive dividend, likely raise prices on consumers and reduce benefits to labor? Isn't this what the left hates? I think Artie T and Market Basket represent capitalism at its best. Treat your employees fairly so they give their best, deliver a competitively priced product to the market and reinvest heavily back into the business. The result of this approach is you dominate the market as Artie T, his employees and Market Basket have shown. I am ok if it gets messy for a while and I have to shop somewhere else. You should be, too.

OH Please
 

Don't turn this into a liberal vs conservative thing.
This is about a store most people in the area enjoy the way it was.

Just to be clear here, I am not against MB labor. I am against them yelling at people who want to shop there and this has got to stop!

They are acting like a bunch of children who can't get their way. They need to grow-up and get back to work and let the MB family resolve this one way or another.

Please leave politics out of this.

Interesting. It is the employees fault and they need to get back to work so the owners can solve the problem? And they yelled at some folks? Unfortunately, fighting for what you believe in is sometimes messy.

I suppose if you really think about it the "scabs" are the customers who cross that line......:rolleye1:

Where in this area is a market basket?? I once saw one in MA many years ago. I've never been to one personally, ever... It must down on the south side of the lake :cool: I usually go to EM Heaths or Harvest. I try to stay away from big business.

You nailed it (in a way), they now ARE the problem. So if they need to get back to work, the solution is to shut down the business based upon the bad things they say/think 'will' happen? Cant buy into that, sorry.

Enough emails and memos have been leaked - if there was a smoking gun that showed impending changes to employee pay / benefits / profit sharing / etc. that would have shown up by now. So I still dont buy into the premise here.....

'Fighting for what you believe in' is not acceptable if it stifles free enterprise or blocks me (or makes me feel like I need to provide a reason) from entering an establishment in order to make a purchase. Yelling at me if I do enter is just pathetic.

This is called impeding free enterprise. The company has been lenient and allowed protests to happen at their own front doors up until now. That needs to stop...and the only reason it would be allowed to continue would be they have written off the business and are waiting for the highest offer to shake itself out.

Who wins then?

I was shoppng there last week for an item that I can only get there. The people out front were as nice as usual and I had a chat with them.. Today I have to go and load up on my candy (Skybars) that they carry. I will talk to the employees and even ask if I can get them something like chips or soda. I support them and only shop for one or two items. The rest I go and pay higher prices at Hannaford.

Joe

I also went into a market basket recently and no one as much as looked at me crossed eyed. I don't think this behavior is widespread. The employees are too smart.

Stan: when you are taking massive dividends they must be paid for in some manner such as increased prices, reduced benefits and/or limited capital expenditures. This is a penny business and choices must be made. I agree that customers shouldn't be harassed and as I posted above I don't think this is happening in a meaningful way. I also don't think the employees are trying to close the business rather they are trying to drive it in a direction that is mutually beneficial for capital, labor and customers. Further, when a massive non unionized workforce pulls together with this much moxie they know exactly what the facts are. One of the owners has a black hat and one has a white hat. It is cut and dry.

If you look at tax records, some of the stores are owned by RMD, which is owned by Mike Kettenback Sr., who is T's brother in law. More are owned by a real estate company owned by T's wife. The grocery store does not own any of the buildings, they instead have long term leases on them.

I don't think so either. But I don't think the employees realize all the potential consequences for their actions.

Taxes
 

There are many reasons why seperate entities would own the real estate.

The first may be taxes. The depreciation on the real estate can be used to offset the taxable income for the company. If the company is very profitable higher rents can be charged, the net income will decline, and the increase in property income can be offset by the depreciation, thus reducing your income tax liability.

Liability may be another reason. If someone sues it is better to have isolated your assets than put them all under one name.

Only the family knows why they structured it the way they did. And really, with a privately held company it is really none of our business!

You are making my point for me.

Are you saying the board came in one day and said lets take a $300m distribution, we can pay for it by raising prices?

Or did they say we have a huge amount of cash on the balance sheet, lets pocket some and we'll still have plenty left? You don't know the distribution schedule, this could have been planned for some time.

You don't know, and I don't know - but to say the only way to pay for a distribution is to raise prices or reduce spending/benefits is overly simplistic and not true. Companies accrue cash - at some point you do something with it.

Again - your theory is based on an assumption that cannot be proven. You assume prices will have to be raised, I see no reason why that is the only reasonable scenario.

That's not true they do own some of there buildings!

The problem with that is, that money was slated to open new stores, some that were being built and some already built. They didn't open them. check into the new building in Waltham Ma. it's built and not opened, and has been for some time, so it has nothing to do with the current situation, they took the money instead of opening the stores.

I can look out my window and see that building - it is far from ready. There are a thousand reasons that (and other) construction in the area have been slowed down or stopped. It took them two years to open a Panera down the road for similar reasons.

As for the developer of that site - they are proceeding regardless ( http://1265main.wordpress.com/ ).

In their current state they will not be moving in anywhere anytime soon, agreed. There are certainly contractual obligations involved and I am sure they will have to adhere to them. But if the status quo doesn't change you should not be worrying about new stores, you should be worrying about there being any stores.

Waltham is no where near ready inside, I live 8 or 9 miles down the street. It's not sitting ready to open (yet.) Maybe I'm wrong but I've always heard late fall 2014. IF that's true it seems to be on track.

What about this then!
 

That pretty much says it all. What the heck is the BOD's mindset right now? What a mess.

...new Plymouth NH Market Basket!
 

...just drove past the proposed MB site in Plymouth and saw Artie T and Artie S together, shaking hands and both holding up a large gold shovel together, posing for the camera, as they broke ground at the new Plymouth NH Market Basket ...... scheduled to open on Halloween-2015 ..... trick or treat:D:laugh:!

My understanding was that the company is debt free.

The AS side wants to take on debt to pay themselves hefty bonuses.

This is NOT a case of cash on hand that needs to be distributed.

That seems like a poor business decision to me. That debt will need to be repaid and that money will come from somewhere.

Mb
 

what I have not read here is obvious; let MB fail if they make bad decisions. let free markets work. if MB replaces their CEO with an unpopular replacement and store quality suffers, consumers will shop elsewhere and MB will suffer. let the system WORK!

ASD may be a little preoccupied to deal with all this business stuff.
I have heard from a very reliable source that he was at the Tuftonboro town offices as recently as yesterday applying for a marriage license.

That explains a lot, he must have needed his share of the $300 million payout for the dowry.......