Bankrupt US supermarket chain Bruno’s has signed a US$45.8m deal to sell its 56 remaining stores to Southern Family Markets.
The retailer, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early February in a bid to “restructure operations”, sold its stores in an auction on Wednesday (29 April).
An asset purchase agreement was signed with Southern Family Markets Acquisitions, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers, under which, the company has purchased 31 store locations on a “going concern” basis and has the remaining 25 on a liquidating basis.
“I am pleased that we were able to come to an agreement with Southern Family that not only preserves jobs at our store locations but also delivers more value to our creditors than other potential outcomes would,” said Jim Grady, chief restructuring officer for Bruno’s. “We are grateful to all of our teammates for their hard work, our customers for their loyalty and our communities for their support to Bruno’s throughout this process.”
Bruno’s will seek approval of the asset purchase agreement in a court hearing scheduled for 4 May.
Bruno’s had 66 stores in total. The retailer sold the first ten in February, which resulted in 30 job cuts.
