Safeway will drastically expand its market by taking over Sobeys. It will grow to expand the entire Canadian geography as well as almost double the number of stores it owns. In addition to this Safeway will have one less competitor in the marketplace, and be larger which will make it easier to stand against the other competition in the marketplace. The decision for a company to acquire another company is a massive and critical decision. The company acquiring must be ready to undertake the challenges involved, as well as the target company needs to be a proper fit with the other company. All of these changes mean many years of possible turbulence for the company and its employees, but if done carefully and mindfully the company will come out of the situation with a large financial and market gain. This assignment had great value and the learner was able to find several areas of importance for the learner. For this assignment an in-depth review of Safeway and Sobeys' Annual Reports, as well as, financial information had to be completed. Reading through the annual reports gave an understanding of how they are laid out and what types of information they contain, which the learning may not have previously experienced. The information found in the annual...

The assignment had significant importance because it showed the wealth of information that company's annual reports actually hold. In addition to that, the assignment carried the importance of having the learner explorer the true effects of a competitor's acquisition. Many people would think off the top of their head that an acquisition would affect the baseline employees and store locations, but without this assignment it would have been hard to realize that the executive team, the geographic markets, store brands, distribution network, store locations, and number of employees are all affected by the acquisition.
References

Safeway. Safeway 2010 Annual Report Fact Book. Retrieved June 7, 2011 from Safeway Investors Web Site: http://safeway.ca

Sobeys. Sobeys Annual Report. Retrieved June 7, 2011 from Sobeys Corporate Web Site: http://www.sobeyscorporate.com

United States. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved June 7, 2011 from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Web Site: http://www.sec.gov

Yahoo. Yahoo! Finance.…