Gillian Tan, Columnist

Price Check on Sprouts

The organic grocer faces the same pressures as its rivals but continues to outpace them on sales growth and profitability.

March 20, 2017 at 5:03 PM UTC

By Gillian Tan

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

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Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. may soon be a closely held company. Again.

The organic grocer is in preliminary talks to merge with Albertsons Cos., according to Bloomberg News, in a deal that would value the company at north of $3 billion. The timing is no coincidence: Just this month, Sprouts dipped below its July 2013 IPO price of $18 a share for the first time. (And prior to last week when deal speculation emerged, the stock had tumbled 40 percent over the previous 12 months, in part due to margin pressures from food-price deflation).