Fleming's grocery unit split among 4 buyers

Associated Press

DALLAS — Bankrupt grocery distributor Fleming Cos. has sold its core business to four buyers instead of the single buyer that had been previously identified.

Fleming said in a regulatory filing yesterday that it sold wholesale-distribution facilities in California, Hawai'i and Wisconsin to C&S Wholesale of Vermont; a plant in Garland to Grocers Supply Co. of Houston; Miami operations to Associated Grocers of Florida; and facilities in the Midwest and Southeast to Associated Wholesale Grocers of Kansas City.

Terms of the sales were not disclosed.

Fleming previously had agreed to sell all the facilities to C&S for $400 million.

The deal makes C&S Hawai'i's largest grocery supplier. Fleming customers included Foodland Super Market Ltd., Times Super Market, military commissaries and Daiei.

The company also said that interim chief executive Peter S. Willmott had stepped down and was replaced by chairman Archie R. Dykes. Willmott will remain a director.

Fleming said Dykes would work with a chief restructuring officer as it "works through the remainder of the restructuring process." Fleming is trying to sell its only remaining operating unit, which supplies convenience stores. It acquired the San Francisco-based business last year.

Officials with Fleming and the buyers did not respond to requests for comment.

Fleming was founded in 1915 in Topeka, Kan., and grew to become one of the nation's largest wholesale grocery distributors, with about $15 billion in revenue. But a deal to supply Kmart Corp. never reached its goal of $4.5 billion in annual sales and it collapsed after Kmart filed for bankruptcy and closed hundreds of stores.

Fleming filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April.