The daily business briefing: June 12, 2017

Aldi raises stakes in grocery price wars, GE shares gain as CEO steps aside, and more

The Aldi logo at a store
(Image credit: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

1. Aldi announces $3.4 billion investment in U.S. grocery store expansion

German grocery chain Aldi said Sunday that it planned to invest $3.4 billion to expand in the U.S. Aldi already operates 1,600 stores in the U.S. It said it would open another 400 by the end of 2018, and would reach a store base of 2,500 by 2022. Aldi said it would spend $1.6 billion to remodel 1,300 of its current stores as it raises the stakes in a price war with rivals. The new spending will raise Aldi's capital investment this year to $5 billion as it competes in an increasingly brutal price war. German rival Lidl is opening its first 100 U.S. stores on June 15, boasting that it will offer prices up to 50 percent lower than the competition. Walmart, the largest U.S. grocer, is pressing vendors to undercut rivals by 15 percent.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.