Albertsons‘ IPO plans have been halted again, this time due to price deflation that has affected sales and earnings across the supermarket industry. Albertsons (Acme, Albertsons, Safeway, Vons and several others) originally proposed a public offering a year ago, but postponed it when Walmart’s announcement about earnings pressure prompted an industry-wide drop in valuations.
Analysts are not optimistic that Albertsons will be able to achieve an IPO at the valuations contemplated last fall, when price deflation wasn’t an issue and consumers were not as cautious as they seem to be now.