Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants

What we do

Advising the Families Who Feed America’s Families™

The Solomon Partners Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants team provides investment banking advisory services to public and private clients across our coverage sectors, including:

• Traditional Grocery
• Specialty/Ethnic Grocery
• Club Grocery
• Discount Grocery
• Drug Stores
• Convenience Stores
• Grocery Wholesale
• Specialty Food Distribution
• Foodservice Distribution
• Restaurants
• Grocery Real Estate
• Food Tech

Our Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants practice provides M&A, financing, and restructuring advisory services to a diverse set of clients, including some of the largest operators in our industries, private equity firms, and real estate investment companies. The team also has extensive experience advising family-owned businesses and high-growth companies.

The practice is led by Scott Moses, whose experience includes some of the largest and most significant grocery and pharmacy M&A transactions in the past two decades, with a combined transaction value over $50 billion.

Over the past few years, Solomon’s extensive work in the Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants sector has included working with clients such as:

• C&S Wholesale Grocers (on its $1.77 billion acquisition of SpartanNash)
• Roche Bros. (on its sale to Bozzuto’s owner)
• Fresh Encounter (on its sale to SpartanNash)
• Albertsons (on its terminated merger with Kroger)
• Kroger (on its $800mm acquisition of Roundy’s)
• KKR (on its sale of Cardenas Markets to Heritage Grocers Group / Apollo)
• El Rancho (on its sale to Heritage Grocers Group / Apollo and its sale of a growth investment by Albertsons)
• Sprouts Farmers Market (on its merger with Henry’s Farmers Market / Apollo)
• Sunflower Farmers Market (on its merger with Sprouts Farmers Market / Apollo)
• New Seasons Market (on its sale to Emart / Good Food Holdings)
• Rite Aid Lenders (on its sale of Michigan and Ohio Assets to Walgreens)
• FreshDirect (on its split-off from Getir)
• Mercatus (on its merger with Stor.ai)
• Boxed.com (on its sale of Spresso to BlackRock and its merger with Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp.)
• Imperfect Foods (on its sale to Misfits Market)
• Baked By Melissa (on its sale of a growth investment by Tiff’s Treats)
• Price Chopper / Market 32 (merger with Tops Markets)
• Save Mart (on its sales to Oak Street Real Estate Capital and Kingswood Capital Management)
• United Supermarkets (on its sale to Albertsons)
• Save A Lot (on its ~$1bn recapitalization and relicensing sales)
• Southeastern Grocers (on its sale of Bi-Lo stores to Ahold Delhaize and Alex Lee; its sale of Bi-Lo Rx assets to CVS Health and Walgreens; and its sale of Winn-Dixie Rx assets to CVS Health)
• Fairway Markets (on its sale of stores to Village Super Market, Amazon, Bogopa and Key Food)
• Kings Balducci’s (on its sale to Albertsons)
• Lucky’s Market (on its sale of stores to various acquirers including Aldi, Publix, Southeastern Grocers, Dollar General and the founders, Bo and Trish Sharon, et. al., as well as the original sale of a meaningful equity stake to Kroger)
• OpCapita and Centerbridge (on their investment in Soul Foods Group)
• Jason’s Deli (on its refinancing of existing credit facilities)
• Pharmaca Integrative (on its sale to Medly Pharmacy)
• Fred’s (on its sale of Rx assets to Walgreens and CVS)
• Best Market (on its sale to Lidl US)
• Martin’s Super Markets (on its sale to SpartanNash)
• Supervalu (on its sale of Shop ‘N Save assets to Schnuck Markets)
• Apollo (on its $305mm acquisition of Qdoba)
• Central Grocers (on its sale of Strack & Van Til to Indiana Grocery Group and its sale of its DC to Supervalu)
• Marsh Supermarkets (on its sales to Kroger and Fresh Encounter)
• Mi Pueblo (on its sale to KKR / Cardenas)
• Haggen Food & Pharmacy (on various transactions including the sale of its core business to Albertsons; the sale of its non-core stores to Smart & Final, Albertsons, Gelson’s, Sprouts, Stater Bros., 99 Ranch and Bristol Farms, et. al.; its previous operating company sale to Comvest Partners, its family-owned real estate sale to Merlone Geier and Rx assets sale to Walgreens)
• Pro’s Ranch Markets (on its sale of its California Region stores to Vallarta)
• Weis Markets (on its sale of SuperPetz to Petco)