There are few more-dominant and better-managed retailers than Publix Super Markets, the top Florida grocer.
The company's recent underscored its strength. Publix had operating earnings of $1.3 billion in the period, up 35% year over year while full-year 2022 profits totaled $4 billion, up 13% from 2021.
Unfortunately for investors, Publix isn't publicly traded. Its shares are owned by employees, directors, and the founding Jenkins family. Publix's market value, based on its stock price set quarterly, is $48 billion, more than Kroger (ticker: KR) and Albertsons (ACI) combined.
Publix has blanketed Florida with grocery stores -- it has 842 in the state -- and has driven competitors out. The leading public supermarket chains, Kroger and Albertsons, have no stores in the state, although Kroger covers Florida with its online-grocery business. Publix's total store count is 1,322, as it has expanded in the Southeast with Georgia and Alabama the No. 2 and 3 states, respectively, in terms of its store-count by state.
Publix's net margin of 7% -- net income divided by annual sales -- is double that of Kroger.
Publix is known for customer service, and one reason is that it's employee-owned -- and is the largest such company in the country. Employees can buy stock through purchase plans, and get stock as part of their compensation.
Publix still gives free cookies to children -- a practice that was suspended for a period during the Covid epidemic -- and they're baked in its stores.
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The company had 242,000 employees at year-end, and some longtime staffers are millionaires. Publix promotes from within and its top leadership boasts some corporate lifers, including CEO Todd Jones, 60, who started with the company as a clerk in his late teens. Publix also shows restraint with pay, as Jones , compared with $18 million for Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen.
The company's executives don't do much talking to the media, and Publix had no immediate comment in response to a Barron's inquiry."I'm proud of our operating results and pleased with our stock price increase," said Jones in the earnings press release. "I want to thank our associates for continuing to deliver premier customer service."
The Publix stock price is set quarterly by the company based on comparable public companies and the -- there are more than 3.3 billion shares outstanding. The stock has been a big winner long term, and is up 75% in the past five years, excluding dividends, and tenfold in the last 25 years. The stock is now valued at about 12 times 2022 operating profits.
The company regularly boosts the dividend, which now provides a 2.5% yield.
David Livingston, a retailing consultant, that part of Publix's success reflects its financial strength. The company truly has a fortress balance sheet with virtually no debt, and about $11 billion in securities, mostly bonds.
Livingston cited its ownership of considerable real estate, hundreds of stores, and all of its distribution centers and manufacturing facilities. Publix doesn't do a lot of home deliveries, Livingston said. "Because they run great stores, people enjoy going to them," he says.
Publix was founded in 1930 by George Jenkins when he was 23. Publix distinguished itself with stores in the 1940s that had such amenities as air conditioning, automatic doors, frozen-food cases, and terrazzo floors, which were rare in the industry at the time.
The Jenkins family's stake in Publix has been estimated to be worth about $9 billion by Forbes.
With favorable demographics in Florida and an impregnable market position, Publix has a sunny outlook.
Write to Andrew Bary at
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