National pet-store chain Petco has entered into an agreement to acquire Drs. Foster & Smith, the leading mail order pet supply company in the nation, and parent company to our beloved LiveAquaria. The first thing that comes to mind in times like this, is how things might change for either of the companies involved. As we saw with the merger of Ecotech Marine and AquaIllumination earlier this year, things tend to be mostly status quo, at least for a while.
LiveAquaria director Kevin Kohen commented that “Things will be business as usual here at Drs. Foster and Smith. That’s all the information we have at the moment as this is brand new, but thanks for asking. We are excited about what it means for our company!”
Some in the marine aquarium industry are understandably likely to get nervous at the prospect of a large physical chain store buying out the nation’s premier mail order company and especially the LiveAquaria division. However in our dealings with all parties involved, Petco included, we’ve noticed a sincere push for customer education about all the livestock they sell. Furthermore, we’ve also noticed that Petco. has showed restraint in what kinds of livestock they offer in the limited amount of retail locations that even carry live saltwater fish.
The announcement of the development between Petco and Drs. Foster & Smith is nary an hour old and the deal has yet to be even concluded, pending the long and arduous business and legal processes acquisition like this go through (deal is expected to finalize in early 2015). That being said you can, bet your caudal fin that we’ll be following up with both companies to find out why this deal was made, what they hope to gain from it, and how this will affect DFS and Petco’s presence in the marine aquarium marketplace in the future.
[Petco]
