Are You About to Lose Your Safeway? (Maybe, Kind Of)

The country’s largest grocer, Kroger Co., may try to buy all or part of the second-biggest grocery chain, Safeway Inc., which has dozens of stores across Virginia, Maryland and DC.

The merger may be the only way for the two large grocers to compete against the nation's largest seller of groceries, Walmart, says the Wall Street Journal.

Whether Kroger ends up with a chunk of Safeway remains to be seen. The Wall Street Journal says the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which also owns Albertsons, has a Safeway buyout in the works.

Cerberus is still seen as the likely buyer for Safeway due in part to the antitrust issues involved with a Kroger combination, the newspaper reports.

But those antitrust concerns might be lessened as Walmart and Target join in the grocery business.