WEEK OF DECEMBER 19, 2024
VOLUME 61 | ISSUE 20
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ONE BIKE, OPEN SLEIGH
Final price tag of race in CD8: $40 million About $24 million was spent to benefit Caraveo, who lost to Evans by about 2,500 votes BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN
Joseph and Jessica Shepherd check in with St. Nick Dec. 7 at Northglenn’s Stonehocker Farm during the city’s Holiday Bike Giveaway. Joseph had SCOTT TAYLOR just selected his new bicycle. See more about the giveaway on page 5.
Albertsons calls off Kroger merger in wake of rulings Colorado waits for decision in antitrust case, but that may now be moot BY TAMARA CHUANG THE COLORADO SUN
A day after two judges in two lawsuits ruled against the proposed $24.6 billion supermarket merger, Albertsons Companies said Dec. 11 it would end its merger agreement with Kroger. “Given the recent federal and state court decisions to block our proposed merger with Kroger, we have made the difficult decision to terminate the merger agreement. We are deeply disappointed in the courts’ decisions,” Alb-
ertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said. At the same time, the Idaho grocery chain, which owns 105 Safeway and Albertons grocery stores in Colorado, also filed a lawsuit against Kroger for breach of merger agreement because the larger supermarket chain “ignored regulators’ concerns,” the company said in a statement. As part of the merger proposal, if the deal failed to go through, Kroger must pay “an immediate $600 million termination fee” to Albertsons, the company said. The company is also seeking billions of dollars in damages from Kroger as it seeks to regain value for shareholders. Kroger operates 118 King Soopers and 32 City Market stores in Colorado. The company called Albertsons’
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claims “baseless and without merit” and looks forward to another day in court, said a Kroger spokesperson. “Kroger refutes these allegations in the strongest possible terms, especially in light of Albertsons’ repeated intentional material breaches and interference throughout the merger process. This is clearly an attempt to deflect responsibility following Kroger’s written notification of Albertsons’ multiple breaches of the agreement, and to seek payment of the merger’s break fee, to which they are not entitled,” the company said. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Oregon overseeing the Federal Trade Commission antitrust case issued a preliminary injunction to give federal regulators additional time to consider implications
of the merger. That temporarily halted the merger from moving forward. A judge in a second lawsuit in the state of Washington issued a permanent injunction later that day. Colorado’s trial opposing merger
Colorado already had a preliminary injunction to block the merger in the state. Attorney General Phil Weiser had sued the companies in February alleging that the two grocery chains already demonstrated anticompetitive behavior during the King Soopers worker strike in January 2022, when management discussed not poaching striking workers or marketing to King Soopers pharmacy customers who were trying to avoid crossing the picket line. SEE ANTITRUST, P6
The final price tag of the race in Colorado’s highly competitive 8th Congressional District this year was about $40 million, with three-quarters of that sum being spent by super PACs. Most of the money — or about $24 million — was spent to benefit incumbent U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat. But it wasn’t enough, as she lost to Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans by about 2,500 votes, or about 1 percentage point. Caraveo’s campaign raised about $8.1 million for her reelection bid, spending all but about $90,000 of that through Election Day, according to her campaign finance report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. The report reflected fundraising and spending from Oct. 17 through Nov. 25. Caraveo spent more than $2 million in the final weeks of the campaign, most of that on advertising. Evans’ campaign raised and spent about $2.5 million to beat Caraveo. That includes $642,000 in the final weeks of the contest, with most of that money going to advertising. The campaign paid Evans $3,000 in salary in November, and still owed $128,000 to vendors on Nov. 25, mostly for victory bonuses. The campaign had about $88,000 left in cash on Nov. 25. The single-biggest super PAC spender on the contest was the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is tied to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican. The group dropped about $6.7 million on the contest, the outcome of which helped Republicans keep their narrow majority in the U.S. House. House Majority PAC, a Democratic group, was the second-biggest super PAC spender on the race, at $6 million. Caraveo also benefitted from $2.3 million in spending by Fairshake PAC, a group that SEE RACE, P15
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