Kroger Stock slid to trade at $42.94-0.22 at close: 04:00 PM EDT on Wednesday

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is urging the Federal Trade Commission to prevent Kroger’s (NYSE:KR) proposed $25 billion acquisition of competing grocery chain Albertsons (NYSE:ACI) from going through. On Wednesday, Warren tweeted, “I’m calling on the FTC to prohibit this deal.” “Families are already being overcharged by large grocery stores like Kroger and Albertsons. Even higher pricing and job cuts would result from less competition and more mergers. “

Warren’s tweet was in response to a story that stated on Tuesday that an Albertsons (ACI) mega supermarket acquisition would be held by the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee. When the panel, a subcommittee of the judiciary committee chaired by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), will hold the hearing on the deal wasn’t immediately clear.

Warren’s remarks and a Senate hearing come at a time when analysts and investors have been wary of the mega supermarket merger since it was announced on Friday. This is because it brought together some of the biggest grocery store chains in the nation during the Biden administration, which has been trying to be more pro-competitive and has contested several deals.

Warren has a history of trying to thwart business transactions. Last month, Warren and five other lawmakers were said to have asked the FTC to stop Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) plan to buy iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT). She encouraged the Department of Justice to closely examine JetBlue’s (JBLU) proposed acquisition of Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) last month in order to ultimately prevent the merger.

Expert Assessment of ACI and Kroger Stock

On Monday, Albertsons (NYSE:ACI) moved from neutral to buy because he believes the next 18 months will be difficult. In the same way, Rupesh Parikh, an analyst at Oppenheimer, said that investors would be smart to wait until after the regulatory review period. In a note published on Monday (SpinCo), Wells Fargo sees possible issues with Kroger’s (NYSE:KR) proposal to spin off up to 375 shops through an Albertsons subsidiary in a note published on Monday (SpinCo).

In the report, Wells Fargo analyst Edward Kelly said, “The merger agreement lets KR back out and pays a $600 million break-up fee if the FTC requires KR to sell more than 650 locations.” “It’s hard to say whether an FTC order would go above this level, but we still predict a large number of divestitures given that it may be challenging to locate a buyer without offering an appropriate local scale.

Kroger Stock Drops As Analysts Shift From Albertsons Over Deal Uncertainties

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