Market Basket board members clap back at critique from the sidelines
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My wife and I have known the Demoulas family for years. In high school, my wife worked at the Market Basket in North Andover as a cashier and attended school with one of the Demoulas sisters. My father-in-law and his brother ran the family Colombo Yogurt business and sold yogurt to the first Demoulas Super Market on Dummer Street in Lowell.
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D'Alessandro is not alone as the grandson of immigrants. My grandparents escaped the Armenian genocide in 1915. My grandmothers were orphaned. One spent years at a refugee camp in Egypt, where her mother died of malaria. Like D'Alessandro's grandfather, my grandfather owned and operated a small grocery store, in North Providence, with fiercely loyal customers. He provided for his wife and six children but never grew his business beyond a beloved corner store.
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As a former CEO, D'Alessandro should know that his take on Market Basket makes no sense. Would he, like Arthur T., have refused to give the John Hancock board an annual budget? Or deny his board advance notice of large capital outlays? Would he have turned down repeated requests by his board to meet executives or have a say in succession?
The bottom line is that this is about accountability. How do you manage an $8 billion company so that it thrives for the next 100 years?
We have a mediation planned to try to reach resolution.
Meanwhile, our companywide sales and customer counts are up. The culture has not changed. Our associates are working hard every day and should be applauded. Yet D'Alessandro calls for behavior that would endanger the business and our communities. It is the height of irresponsibility.
Jay K. Hachigian
Chairman of the board
Market Basket
Tewksbury
A commitment to continue Market Basket's traditions
I have spent my career in commercial real estate and grew up in the Merrimack Valley, Market Basket's heartland. I was asked to join the company's board two years ago and have been struck by the commitment of the associates and shareholders and my fellow board members to continue Market Basket's traditions of offering our communities low prices and high-quality products, all while providing profit-sharing and good jobs to our associates.
Let me be clear: No one has ever said a word about changing distributions or our business model. David D'Alessandro admits, 'I don't know Arthur T. or any of the family,' yet he fabricated a scenario about new investors and lenders.
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It is surprising and disappointing that an accomplished businessperson such as D'Alessandro would make up such a narrative that puts the livelihoods of our customers and associates at risk, when we're simply doing our jobs and standing up to a CEO who seems to think he doesn't need to be accountable to anyone at all.
Michael Keyes
Belmont
The writer is senior director, acquisitions, at Intercontinental Real Estate.
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