No Re-IPO for Winn-Dixie

Retail

Published: August 19, 2014 2:43 pm

Last Updated: August 20, 2014 6:50 am

A form “RW” was filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) by a company named Southeastern Grocers LLC on Tuesday. While this might not sound like much to most people, this means that the current owner and operator of supermarket chains Winn-Dixie and BI-LO has now formally withdrawn its plans to conduct an initial public offering. Southeastern Grocers is based in Jacksonville, Fla., and it had first initially filed with the SEC almost a full year ago to conduct an initial public offering for up to $500,000,000 worth of common stock.

The original filing showed that the underwriters hired for the offering were to be Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, William Blair and Wells Fargo Securities. Do we dare ask if their salespeople couldn’t sell yet one more grocery chain to the public, particularly one that had previously filed for bankruptcy.

No reason was offered up as to why the filing was withdrawn. No market conditions and no internal reason cited. The company’s filing simply said:

Pursuant to Rule 477 promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Act”), we hereby file this application for withdrawal of the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-191389) of Southeastern Grocers, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (the “Company”), together with all exhibits and amendments thereto, initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on September 26, 2013 (the “Registration Statement”). The Company has determined not to pursue the contemplated public offering at this time. The SEC has not declared the Registration Statement effective under the Act and no securities were sold in connection with the offering contemplated by the Registration Statement.

Much of America may not know about Winn-Dixie or BI-LO chains as is. They operate in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Winn-Dixie was one of the prior bankruptcy casualties. Another imploded chain looks like it is just going to have to wait to come public again.

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