Is This The End of Acme Markets? I Hope Not!

If you haven't heard, Supervalu has sold Acme (as well as Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's and Star Market) to the investor group Cerberus Capital Management Group LP.

While I know that many of you are not the biggest fans of Acme, I still love them and believe that they do have the best sales. I have been shopping at Acme since I was a small child and would hate to see them go (not to mention the 13,000 jobs that are on the line). However, with their higher everyday prices, Giant becoming a bigger "player" in the Philadelphia area and more and more Wegmans moving in,  it doesn't take an economist to know that they are going to need a major turnaround if they are to stay in business.

About Cerberus, from the philly.com article:

The same group bought 616 Albertsons stores in Northern California, Texas, Florida and Arizona in 2005-06, put a management team headed by supermarket veteran Bob Miller in charge, and made the stores profitable and popular enough that they've been able to sell  hundreds of the stores to other operators: for example, Publix (Florida, 2006) and Savemart (Northern California, 2008).

Presumably they hope to repeat that record with Acme, Boston-based Shaw, Chicago-based Jewel and the other chain supermarkets that are part of the current deal, which they buyers hope to close later this winter.

But this article is a little less hopeful for fans & employees of Acme:

“The stores are too small, they’re pricey, the morale of the associates is apathetic, the merchandising has no sizzle. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to get back in shape,” Metzler said of Acme, once the area’s supermarket leader but now third in market share. “Will [Cerberus] invest heavy capital in Acme? I don’t think so.”

What do you think will happen to Acme, Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's and Star Market? Will they close or stay open?