$300-Mil Bid Tendered for Troubled Grand Union Chain

WAYNE, NJ-Supermarket giant A&P is very interested in acquiring all or most of the struggling Grand Union chain, but it appears as if the winner will be C&S Wholesale Grocers, a Brattleboro, VT-based company that also happens to be one of Grand Union’s leading suppliers as well as its largest unsecured creditor. If the $300 million deal proposed by C&S goes through, the Wayne-based chain will likely be ultimately sold off in pieces.

Under C&S’s offer, the wholesaler would get about 185 of the nearly 197 stores operated by the company, as well as a distribution center located in Montgomery, NY. Grand Union, which is in Chapter XI bankruptcy and whose shares have been trading for as little as 13 cents, doesn’t expect its shareholders to get anything if the $300 million sale is approved by the courts. The company is said to have $750 million in assets and $804 million in liabilities.