I decided to write about my sense of the stock market tomorrow.
Instead, I’m going to write about the struggle for control of the family owned, privately held New England supermarket chain, Market Basket. That’s both because it says something about the value of supermarkets in the Northeast, and because the fight is typical of what happens in family owned firms in the second or third generation.
The story: Two branches of the Demoulas family own Market Basket. One, led by Arthur S. has no involvement in running the business; the other, led by Arthur T., does–or did until a short time ago.
As a result, according to Bloomberg radio, of some past impropriety on the part of the ATs, the ASs have voting control of Market Basket. Last week the board voted to oust Arthur T. as CEO and replace him with two outsiders who presumably have a mandate to cut costs and prepare the 71-store chain for sale.
Hearing this, warehouse and delivery workers walked off the job, demanding Arthur T’s reinstatement. Many other workers have staged protests. Store shelves haven’t been restocked. The chain is reported by the Boston Globe to be losing $10 million a day.
this is typical family owned company stuff
Many family owned businesses are started by one or two entrepreneurial relatives. Firms like this tend to have:
–high financial leverage
–lots of family on the payroll
–content to have economic rewards come through salaries/perks for family members rather than paying out dividends
–concerned more about stability than growth.
By the second or third generation, ownership is diffused. Grandchildren probably don’t want to be in the family business. Recognizing the value of the stock they hold, they want to cash out. They come into conflict with other family members, whose lives, heritage and hefty salaries are tied to the business.
New England supermarkets are valuable
The Globe says Market Basket could be worth $3.5 billion. There are apparently about a dozen shareholders. That would imply something like a $100 million payday for even the smallest holders if the firm were sold. Until recently, the firm had been distributing dividends of about $100 million a year, for about a 3% yield.
I haven’t tried to confirm any of these figures myself.
One important thing about New England, though, is that it’s a mature, heavily developed region. This has two positive implications for Market Basket:
1. It’s impossible for Wal-Mart, the ultimate supermarket killer, to get a strong foothold. It simply can’t assemble parcels to build on or get local planning commission authorization to start construction.
2. For the same reason, Market Basket’s 71 store locations have immense potential value to a competitor.
A side note: in my town, the supermarkets are small, dingy and very dated. Twenty years ago, a major chain purchased a large parcel of land which it thought was zoned for a supermarket, and on which it intended to build a superstore. The project is still tied up in litigation spurred by “concerned citizens,” funded, I’m told, by the existing markets.
bones of contention with Market Basket
Store employees are reportedly much better paid than typical supermarket workers. Starting pay is $4 an hour higher than the minimum wage. Experienced cashiers can earn double the industry average of around $20,000 a year. Market Basket puts 15% of wages into an employee 401k. Arthur T. also apparently projects a sincere concern for employees’ welfare.
Employees assume, doubtlessly correctly, that Arthur T.’s ouster spells the end of above-average salary and benefits. This for two reasons:
–Arthur S’s family understands that a dollar of wages to an employee is money that would otherwise be dividended to shareholders, meaning it’s money that comes directly out of their pockets. If we assume that the average employee earns $4 an hour more than the industry median and that the 25,000 workers average 20 hours a week, then the total “excess salary” paid by Market Basket yearly is $107 million. My suspicion is that this is too low. Still, a ballpark figure is that dividends to shareholders could double if wages and benefits are chopped back.
–Presumably, a trade buyer would pay less for a company if it had to take the reputational black eye of reducing staff and cutting compensation. Market Basket could sell to a financial buyer, a private equity firm that would do the pruning. In my view the equity owners have decided to maximize their personal payout by doing this unsavory task themselves.
To my mind, this is all par for the course for family owned businesses. What is truly remarkable in this case, though, is how much publicity the ouster of Arthur T. has gotten. The way employee sentiment has been galvanized is also noteworthy, although workers have a very clear–and large–economic interest in defending the status quo.
Company warehouse workers and truck drivers are playing a key role in the dispute, since their job action is the reason stores can’t restock. Some press reports have even suggested that Arthur T., who is apparently one of a number of potential buyers of Market Basket, somehow helped them along in making their decision to walk off the job. I have no idea whether this is correct, or whether it’s part of a movement to deny AT sainthood.