Steve Burd, Safeway's chairman, president and CEO pointed out that the company opened five new Lifestyle stores and completed 80 Lifestyle remodels in the first half of 2006. For the year, the company expects to spend approximately $1.6 billion in capital expenditures, open approximately 20 new Lifestyle stores, and complete approximately 280 Lifestyle remodels.

Through the end of the second quarter, 31% of the stores had been converted to or opened in the Lifestyle format, Burd noted. The company has invested $741.3 million in capital expenditures in the first 24 weeks of 2006 in its efforts to remodel and to open the new Lifestyle locations.

In answer to a question from an analyst about whether Safeway would be interested in acquiring any of the Albertson's stores that are being closed, Burd declined to comment specifically, citing "competitive and other reasons." However, he commented that, "If you think about the stores that they announced the closings on, they are small-volume stores and the reason they closed them rather than tried to market them was because they were probably the bleeders." Such stores "are probably not attractive" to other supermarket chains, although they might appeal to some "nonconventional operators."