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Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain that was acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. The new merged company which includes the Albertsons supermarket chain has more than 2,200 stores and over 250,000 employees which makes it the second largest supermarket chain in North America, after The Kroger Company, which has 2,625 stores.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://supermarketnews.com/executive-changes/albertsons-safeway-outlines-new-operations-leadership )〕 Safeway's primary base of operations is in the western and central United States,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Safeway Fact Book )〕 with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, California. ''Supermarket News'' ranked Safeway No. 4 in the 2011 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2010 fiscal year estimated sales of $41 billion. Based on 2009 revenue, Safeway is the 11th largest retailer in the United States.〔(Top 100 Retailers ), ''Stores'', July 2010.〕 ==History== In 1915, Marion Barton Skaggs purchased his father's grocery store in American Falls, Idaho, for $1,089. The chain, which operated as two separate businesses, Skaggs Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores, grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to help grow the network of stores. M.B.'s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, proved spectacularly successful. By 1926, he had opened 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M.B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway stores and incorporated as Safeway, Inc. The original slogan was "an admonition and an invitation" to "Drive the Safeway; buy the Safeway". The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis — it did not offer credit, as grocers traditionally had done. It was the "safe way" to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did at the time, especially during the Great Depression). In 1926, Charles E. Merrill founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, saw an opportunity to consolidate the West Coast grocery industry. Towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W.R.H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale. Then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. Skaggs took the latter.〔Wall Street to main street; Charles Merrill and middle-class investors, p111〕 On July 1, 1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho and Skaggs Cash Stores of California. On completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business.〔Safeway Annual Report 1966, p2〕 Two years later, M.B. listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding "sell by" dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, and some of the first parking lots. The merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi.〔Safeway stock out tomorrow, ''Los Angeles Times'', November 14, 1926, p17〕 In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway. At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California. Safeway headquarters remained there until the move to Pleasanton, California in 1996. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Safeway Inc.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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