Amelia's Grocery Outlet parent to be purchased by investment firm

"Extreme-value" retailer Grocery Outlet, which operates 198 stores in the Western U.S. plus 16 Amelia's supermarkets in Pennsylvania, has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Hellman & Friedman, an investment firm in San Francisco.

Grocery Outlet's principal owner for the last five years has been Berkshire Partners, based in Boston. The chain was founded in 1946 and has been profitable ever since, according to a company representative.

The stores in Pennsylvania operating as Amelia's Grocery Outlet are in the process of converting to the Grocery Outlet banner. The Amelia's chain was purchased by Grocery Outlet in 2012.

Grocery Outlet offers branded grocery products at discount prices, with the stores mostly managed by independent operators.

Hellman & Friedman Managing Director Erik Ragatz says his company plans to move Grocery Outlet "into its next phase of growth."

Amelia's parent company could fetch $1 billion in sale

Grocery Outlet, the discount supermarket with a remarkable track record of profitability, is exploring a sale that may bring more than $1 billion, according to reports. The company's private equity owner, Berkshire Partners, LLC, has hired Barclays and Goldman Sachs to run a sale process.

Grocery Outlet, whose stores are mostly in California, Washington and Oregon, wasn't known in Pennsylvania grocery circles until late 2011 when the company purchased Amelia's. Amelia's currently operates 16 stores in Eastern PA, while Grocery Outlet has about 180 stores.

Sales for Grocery Outlet in 2013 were approximately $1.3 billion.