AUSTIN, Texas — Whole Foods Market Inc. will sell 13 stores to resolve the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge of its $565 million purchase of Wild Oats Markets, the company said Friday.
Whole Foods is putting 12 Wild Oats stores and one Whole Foods store up for sale in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Utah.
The Colorado stores on the block include two locations in Boulder and one each in Colorado Springs, Littleton and Westminster.
The Austin-based company also will sell leases and assets of 19 Wild Oats stores that have closed, including locations in Fort Collins and Littleton.
Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey said the 13 operating stores will do “business as usual.” Federal regulators had challenged Whole Foods’ 2007 acquisition of Boulder-based Wild Oats, worrying the deal would create a natural-food monopoly.
The FTC’s leader said in a statement that selling the stores will “substantially” restore competition that the purchase eliminated.
Whole Foods and Wild Oats were each other’s closest competitors in markets where they overlapped, the FTC said.
