Albertsons/Safeway was purchased by private equity [0]. They used the terms of the merger to 'cash out' - my understanding was the PE firm has already drained Albertsons' cash reserve.

Checking on the twitter, apparently they're using what cash Albertsons has left to do a share buyback, and are going to sue Kroger [1] for sabotaging the merger by not addressing the regulators' concerns.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-19/cerberus-...

[1] https://www.albertsonscompanies.com/newsroom/press-releases/...