Dive Brief:
- The Market Basket supermarket chain in New England will be sold to the man who was pushed out as CEO just weeks ago in a family feud.
- Arthur T. Demoulas will pay $1.5 billion for the shares he didn't already control, thus ending a drive orchestrated by his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas.
- Market Basket stores have gone empty in recent weeks as workers walked off the job en masse, and consumers stayed away in droves, in support of Arthur T.
Dive Insight:
The entire saga of the Demoulas clan has been fun to watch. In particular, it's been quite moving to see people walk out of jobs that they love in order to support the man they see as their boss. The love of Market Basket workers for Arthur T., and his well-documented affection for them, seems more like something lifted from a Jimmy Stewart movie than the cut-throat, shareholders-not-stakeholders business world of today.
In fact, we fully expect to see a Hollywood version of this story on the big screen quite soon.