DG Pressures Family Dollar on Buyout

GOODLETTSVILE, TN—Following Family Dollar Stores‘ turndown of its previous bid of $78.50 per share, Dollar General Corp. on Tuesday came back with an all-cash offer of $80 per share, or about $9.8 billion including the assumption of debt, and threatened to go hostile if the board rejected the new bid. The Goodlettsville, TN-based retailer, already the largest in the dollar-store segment, has also more than doubled the number of stores that it would be willing to divest to satisfy antitrust concerns.

DG’s previous bid for Family Dollar came three weeks after its smaller rival and Dollar Tree announced that the boards of both companies had approved a $9.2-billion cash-and-stock deal for Chesapeake, VA-based Dollar Tree to acquire Family Dollar. The combination would create a company with more than 13,000 stores across the US and Canada and annual sales exceeding $18 billion.