Safeway, Inc. (NYSE:SWY)

Buybacks and 5x fcf. Some debt.

PLEASANTON, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 11, 2013) - Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) will host a conference call with investors on Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. ET (8:00 a.m. PT) to discuss its first quarter 2013 financial results.

The conference call will be audio webcast live at http://www.safeway.com/investor_relations. Click on 'Webcasts' to access the call. A replay will be available for one week following the call.

Safeway Inc. is a Fortune 100 company and one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America based on sales. The company operates 1,641 stores in the United States and western Canada and had annual sales of $44.2 billion in 2012.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/safeway-inc-webcast-first-quarter-203210770.html

Best of the legacy food stores

Safeway? Really? I'm just going by the numbers, folks. If WGO can be a winner, why not SWY?

Foolish Guess.

safeway has had a lot of union problems which have plaqued them for many years but as the older workers retire and more and more are new contract workers the problems will become less and they will be able to compete better cost wise. they are closing and selling unprofitable stores and opening stores in more profitable markets also buying back shares on a regular basis all of which will benifit the in thew future steven kemp

STSC Top ten Dec 2012

value/div

Bad merchandising. Can't compete.

HYLP

union wages and benefits hurt margins, low moat.

Safeway has been buying back shares for several years now. Two of it's competitors ( Savemart and Noble Hill ) have recently shown union representatives they are hurting and could go bankrupt. Safeway is now an advertising company it sells shelf space, end displays advertisement on carts and receipt tape. It sells Target gift cards. It buying up real-estate ( shopping centers). 2 SWY board memb work for KKR. Burd sits on Kohls board. With all the property it owns this company is worth at least 34 a share. Plus you get almost 4% for a dividend. Possible takeover target I think possible buyers could be TGT or Kohls.

Looking at $12/share within 6-9 months...

As much as I love to shop at Safeway, the market is getting increasingly competitive. Walmarts/Targets are starting to branch into groceries and other food stuffs, as well as the already existing Costco market. Why pay $2.00/lb for nectarines when I can get a box full of nectarines at costco for $8.99? I love Safeway and I hope they can pull through, but I don't see a very fruitful and prosperous future with them.

solid dividend

Cash-cow, consumer staples, decent cash flow, OK debt for the industry, pays dividends, isn't going anywhere if the economy turns to garbage again.

As the irrational promotion environment ceases and food price inflation resumes margins should revert back to more average levels. Blackhawk is also providing material support to the operating profits as well. I believe that this should trade at $31 per share.

I also believe that management has done a poor job of managing ROIC. If this metric begins to improve, I believe SWY could trade materially above $31.

Always seems to have better prices than Lucky and with less gimmicks (cookware points?).. Stuck with it's club card program to gather advertising information with every purchase. Seems to have a different variety of offerings vs demographic and that means someone is actually paying attention to (grocery) market trends.

nearly all the stores now have the "lifestyle" facelift, and the grocers in general will see much higher customer traffic as the unemployment rate begins to drop. SWY has a growing gift card business and sub-market valuation. A nice stable performer that should hit the upper 20s in the next 3 years.