The Tengelmann Group, which owns 38 percent of A&P, said it expects to exit its holdings in the bankrupt Montvale, NJ retailer once the chain emerges from its Chapter 11 status.
“We hope that A&P can be led out of its insolvency. But we do not believe that we will be significant shareholders after the process ends,” Tengelmann CEO Karl-Erivan Haub said on July 14 at Tengelmann’s headquarters in Mulheim an der Ruhr, Germany.
Haub is the older brother of Christian Haub, former A&P CEO and son of Erivan Haub, the now retired former chairman of Tengelmann who was responsible for the company’s original investment in A&P.
“A&P is currently in freefall,” Tengelmann’s chief financial officer Jens-Juergen Boeckel added.
While Christian Haub still holds the title of executive chairman, he no longer has any day-to-day duties at A&P. However, his family’s holding company still is the largest stakeholder in the 152 year old chain.
Tenglemann first acquired an interest in A&P in 1979, when it was going through a transition phase of closing several hundred supermarkets in the U.S. At the outset, James Woods was brought in from now defunct Grand Union as chief executive, a position he held until 1997 when Christian Haub joined him as co-chief executive. Haub first joined A&P in 1991. He became sole CEO in 1998 when Woods left the company.
Tengelmann remains one of Europe’s largest and most successful retailers, operating approximately 9,200 stores in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Sales last year were approximately $32 billion.