Albertsons supermarket chain files for IPO

Albertsons recently merged with rival Safeway, and on Wednesday filed for an initial public offering of common stock. Private equity firm Cerebus bought Safeway and merged it with Albertsons earlier this year, creating the second-largest U.S. supermarket chain by number of stores after Kroger Co.

U.S. supermarket chain operator Albertsons Cos Inc, which recently merged with rival Safeway, filed with U.S. regulators on Wednesday for an initial public offering of common stock.

Albertsons is owned by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP.

Cerebus bought Safeway and merged it with Albertsons earlier this year, creating the second-largest U.S. supermarket chain by number of stores after Kroger Co.

Albertsons operates more than 2,000 supermarkets, at least half of which are under the Safeway banner.

Its other supermarket brands include Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, Tom Thumb and United Supermarkets.

The company's revenue rose about 36 percent to $27.2 billion for the 53 weeks ended Feb 28, but it still posted a net loss of $1.2 billion compared with a profit of $1.7 billion a year earlier.

Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith are underwriting the IPO, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing contained a nominal fund raising target of $100 million, and Albertsons said it planned to use the proceeds from the offering to repay debt and for general corporate purposes.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or the exchange on which it would list.

(Reporting by Neha Dimri in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Simon Jennings)