Albertsons plans to raise up to $1.9 billion in IPO

Albertsons, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the United States, set the price range for its initial public offering Friday, saying it plans to raise as much as $1.9 billion.

Albertsons expects to sell 65.3 million shares in the offering, pricing its stock at $23 to $26 a share, the Boise company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company initially said it planned $1.84 billion in a filing last week.

The offering, first announced in July, paves the way for Albertsons to exit years of ownership by a consortium led by the New York investment firm Cerberus Capital Management and came just months after its owners completed a deal to acquire rival Safeway.

It would become the biggest public company based in Idaho, employing more than eight times as many people worldwide as Boise’s Micron Technology Inc., though fewer in Idaho.

Albertsons said it intended to use the proceeds from the offering to repay debt.

The company was founded by Joe Albertson with a store at 17th and State streets in 1939. Albertsons Inc. sold itself in 2006 to a group that included Supervalu, CVS and a partnership made up of Cerberus and several real estate firms. The Cerberus group bought several grocery store chains, including Albertsons, from Supervalu in 2013 for about $3 billion.

Cerberus and a group of investors agreed to buy Safeway for more than $9 billion last year and completed the deal in January.

In its most recent fiscal year, which included January to account for the Safeway acquisition, Albertsons reported $27.2 billion in sales and a $1.2 billion loss. By comparison, it reported $20 billion in sales and a $1.7 billion profit in 2013.

The company operates more than 2,200 stores in 33 states under a variety of supermarket brand names, including Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, Safeway, Tom Thumb and Vons. It employs about 265,000 people.

The Idaho Statesman contributed.

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 12:38 AM.