whole foods is going to buy wild oats

of course i do NOT go to wild oats at bishops' corner (west hartford) because of the whole cheese 'n stuff fiasco (cheese and stuff was a cool 'natural' foods store in hartford. it had been a neighborhood mainstay for MANY years. all of a sudden wild oats came along and bought it. they SWORE up and down they WOULD NOT move that store. the FIRST thing they did was move the store from hartford to west hartford. that left MANY hartford residents with no grocery store. hartford does NOT have many grocery stores by the way. why? i don't know. they just don't. anyway, i boycotted the store). i do shop at whole foods in west hartford center. i try to go at off hours so i don't run into the 'west hartford type crowd'. if they change the wild oats in bishops' corner to a whole foods, i'll shop there as well. i've yet to get to a trader joe's. there is one in the area as well. i hear good things about that too. Whole Foods Agrees to Buy Wild Oats; Profit Declines By Josh Fineman Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Whole Foods Market Inc., the largest U.S. natural-foods grocer, said it agreed to buy rival Wild Oats Markets Inc. for $565 million after reporting its first profit decline in five quarters. Whole Foods will pay $18.50 in cash for each share of Boulder, Colorado-based Wild Oats, 18 percent higher than its closing price today. First-quarter net income fell 7.8 percent to $53.8 million, or 38 cents a share, Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods said today. Earnings missed analysts' estimates. Buying Wild Oats will help counter slowing growth at Whole Foods, which faced competition from Safeway Inc., Trader Joe's and other grocery stores selling organic and prepared food. First-quarter sales at Whole Foods stores open at least a year rose 7 percent, down from 13 percent a year earlier. ............ Whole Foods Buying Rival Paying $565 Million To Acquire Wild Oats By DAVID KOENIG, Associated Press .......Both chains have markets in Connecticut, most notably in West Hartford, where they are in direct competition. Company officials said they would evaluate which stores might close after the purchase is completed in April. The West Hartford Wild Oats store has a special notoriety, scorned by many local shoppers for the company's role in closing a beloved local natural foods store in Hartford's West End. On January 29, 2000, Cheese & Stuff, which had been a fixture in the West End since the mid-1970s, was closed after being bought by Wild Oats, despite promises to the contrary. David Barrett, president of the West End Civic Association, greeted news of Wild Oats' buyout with a sense of justice and some glee...... Tech Tags: whole+foods wild+oats hartford trader+joes