Dollar General Formally Ends Family Dollar Bid as Levine Sells Stock

Dollar General formally ended its hostile bid to buy Family Dollar on Friday, a week after shareholders approved Family Dollar’s plan to sell itself to another rival company.

Dollar General’s $80-per-share, all-cash offer to buy the retailer, based outside Charlotte, stretched on for months, while Family Dollar hammered out its own deal to be acquired by Dollar Tree. In the end, Dollar Tree won after Dollar General couldn’t prove to shareholders that antitrust regulators would approve its Family Dollar purchase.

In ending its bid, Dollar General said that more than 6.8 million shares of Family Dollar stock were offered to the company, representing about 6 percent of shares outstanding. But Dollar General didn’t actually purchase those shares, the company said.

Also Friday, Family Dollar CEO Howard Levine said in securities filings that he sold more than 1.7 million shares of his stock in the company. That cuts his stake in Family Dollar to 6.2 percent. At Friday’s closing price of $76.10, the shares he sold would amount to $134 million.

In a securities filing, Family Dollar said Levine has no plans to sell more stock now, but that he might in the future. Dollar Tree plans to close its acquisition of Family Dollar in March, pending regulatory approval.

This article appeared in print in the February 2nd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.