Albertsons Companies Inc. is an American grocery company founded and based in Boise, Idaho. In January 2015, it acquired Safeway Inc. for $9.2 billion. The newly merged company has more than 2,200 stores and over 250,000 employees, which makes it the second largest supermarket chain in North America after Kroger, which has 2,424 stores. Prior to the merger it had 1,075 supermarkets located in 29 U.S. states under 12 different banners.