In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission approved Raley's exit from Las Vegas. It sold 18 stores to Kroger and left the market.
The reason the government gave is the interesting part.
It said the market had changed too much to worry about. Walmart had opened five Supercenters where there had been none in 1999. The number of supermarkets had grown about 45 percent. Raley's share had been, in the agency's words, “substantially reduced.”
So the deal was fine. A regional grocer had already lost.
Then in 2024 the same agency argued the opposite. Club stores and supercenters, it said, are not really in the same market as supermarkets at all.
Twenty-two years, two positions. And Raley's is still standing in the gap between them.