Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Y’all be sure to keep me honest when I blow a prediction, but on this one, I’m claiming victory. Having beat the anticompetitive rap that the FTC tried to pin on it in court, Whole Foods has completed its acquisiton of Wild Oats.

Whole Foods Closes Wild Oats Deal

What I wrote about this in June:

My opinion is that in this case Whole Foods is right, the feds are wrong, and it’s not even close. I’m willing to cite my own experience, unscientific though it is, in support of this view: I sometimes buy groceries at Whole Foods, as well as a Wild Oats-owned Sun Harvest Market around the corner from my house, but I also regularly shop at H-E-B and Randall’s, which is owned by Safeway. Here in Austin — the hometown of Whole Foods, remember — the primary competition for Whole Foods’ mega-flagship store downtown isn’t the little Sun Harvest in my neighborhood, but the large and exquisitely capitalized Central Market stores owned by H-E-B.

That’s why I’m claiming victory now. Of course, I’ve also come down on the side of the FTC, more or less, in the Rambus case, so let’s see how that one works out . . .