Announced Actions for March 8, 1996

The Federal Trade Commission today announced the following actions. The FTC staff contact is Dan Ducore, 202-326-2526.

Applications for prior approval of transactions: The FTC has received an application for prior approval of a divestiture from the following. The application will be subject to public comment for 30 days, until April 9.

Schnuck Markets, Inc., of St. Louis, Missouri, has applied for FTC approval to divest its National supermarket at 8823 Ladue Road in Ladue, Missouri, to Wild Oats Markets, Inc., a grocery store chain headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Wild Oats will operate the Ladue store as a specialty supermarket, emphasizing health-related and specialty food items. The acquisition is one of 24 required by a 1995 consent order designed to restore supermarket competition allegedly injured when Schnucks acquired supermarkets owned by National Holdings in five states, including Louisiana.

An application for the other 23 divestitures is pending at the FTC (see Jan. 10, 1996 and March 8, 1995 news releases regarding this matter; FTC Docket No. C-3585).

Petitions to reopen and modify FTC orders: The FTC has received a petition from the following entity. The Commission is seeking public comments on it for 30 days, until April 9.

Red Apple Companies, Inc., John Catsimatidis, Supermarket Acquisition Corp., and Designcraft Industries, Inc. (which does business as Sloan's Supermarkets, Inc.) have petitioned the FTC to reopen and modify a Feb. 28, 1995, order so as to end their obligation to divest five supermarkets in New York County, New York. The 1995 order requires six supermarket divestitures in order to restore supermarket competition allegedly injured as a result of Red Apple's purchases of Sloan's supermarkets between 1991 and 1993. An application for prior Commission approval to ivest one of the stores -- the supermarket at 530 Amsterdam Avenue in New York City -- is pending at the FTC. The respondents maintain in their petition that the sale of supermarkets located at 280 8th Avenue and at 188 9th Avenue to Rite Aid should satisfy another divestiture requirement, and that the other four divestiture requirements should be dropped because the respondents have been unable to find supermarket operators that want to run the stores and because new competitors have entered the markets (Docket No. 9266; see Dec. 13, 1994 and Dec. 5, 1995 news releases regarding this matter).

Comments on the application and petition should be addressed to the FTC, Office of the Secretary, 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. Copies of the documents referenced above are available from the FTC's Public Reference Branch, (Petitions, Room 130, at the same address; 202-326-2222; TTY for the hearing impaired 1-866-653-4261. To find out the latest news as it is announced, call the FTC NewsPhone recording at 202-326-2710. FTC news releases and other materials also are available on the Internet at the FTC's World Wide Web site at: http://www.ftc.gov

(petapp12.96)