PLEASANTON, CA - Blackhawk Network Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAWK) parent company Safeway Inc. affirmed in a press release on March 6, 2014 its intention to distribute its 37.8 million shares of Blackhawk common stock to Safeway shareholders and further indicated that it expects to complete the distribution by mid-April.
In addition, in a separate transaction Safeway announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Albertsons which, if consummated, may allow Blackhawk to obtain a step-up in the tax basis of its assets, anticipated to provide significant incremental long-term tax benefits to Blackhawk. The distribution of Blackhawk shares is not dependent upon the completion of Safeway's merger with Albertsons and is being undertaken for independent business reasons.
Blackhawk's day-to-day operations of its prepaid products business have been conducted independently for the past two years, except for sharing tax and treasury management functions. Safeway's change in ownership will not adversely impact Blackhawk's operations and the distribution by Safeway will complete Blackhawk's independence as a stand-alone public company. Blackhawk also recently extended its distribution agreement with Safeway Inc. to be its exclusive provider of prepaid products in all its U.S. grocery stores through 2019 (presently 1,335 stores).
Source: Blackhawk Network, read the entire press release here.
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