Experts downplay bid by Hannaford

A bid to buy Market Basket by the parent company of Hannaford Supermarkets is improbable given not only the current state of the Tewksbury chain's stores, but also the likely extended federal antitrust review it would require, according to grocery analysts.

Delhaize Group, the Belgian owner of the 180-store, Maine-based Hannaford, is purported to have bid for the 71-store Market Basket chain, but overlap in Massachusetts and New Hampshire likely would mean a six- to 12-month Federal Trade Commission review, said Kevin Griffin, publisher of the Griffin Report of Food Marketing. By the time a deal would be consum­mated, Market Basket stores — already bereft of customers and sales — would have to be closed to stave off losses.

"I can't see the Hannaford thing happening," Griffin said. "It's just unrealistic."

A Delhaize spokesman declined comment.

The FTC likely would force Hannaford to divest stores given the proximity of locations between the two chains, said supermarket consultant David Living­ston of DJL Research in Milwaukee. "It would be pretty messy," he said.

And despite Hannaford's opportunity to increase its market share — and non-union synergies — Market Basket is "not much of a going concern," said grocery analyst Andrew Wolf of BB&T Capital Markets.

Market Basket share­holders are believed to be focused on former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas' bid to buy the chain from rival cousin Arthur S. Demoulas' side of the family after the CEO's firing in June, which set off a worker protest that's decimated the chain.

Tom Gordon, a former grocery department district supervisor for Market Basket, is hopeful Arthur T. Demoulas will wrap up a deal by Friday. "Knowing (Arthur T. Demoulas) as well as I do, if he didn't think this was possible, he somehow would have let us know," Gordon said.

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