Ahold to buy 27 stores from Big V for $255 million

Food distributor Royal Ahold NV plans to purchase 27 Shop Rite stores and some assets from the creditors of Big V Holding Corp.’s Big V Supermarkets for $255 million.



Ahold, headquartered in the Netherlands, is making the acquisition through its Stop & Shop unit. Stop & Shop and the creditors will seek permission from the bankruptcy court for the transaction, Stop & Shop said in a news release distributed by PRNewswire. Company officials couldn’t be reached to comment.



Ahold, the biggest food-retailer on the East Coast, is growing through acquisitions and has made 24 takeovers in two years. Big V, which operates 31 Shop Rite stores in New York, filed for bankruptcy in Nov. 2000 and plans to sell most of its assets to Wakefern Food Cooperative.



Stop & Shop has 321 stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, and has 56,000 employees.



Ahold shares have fallen 18 percent in six months.



Bloomberg News