Publix owns more of its stores for 10th year in a row

Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets increased the percentage of company-owned stores in its grocery chain for the tenth year in a row in 2016 to almost 30 percent, the Palm Beach Post reported. Store acquisitions increased the company-owned percentage to 29.1 percent at the end of 2016 from 25.9 percent a year earlier.

An analysis by the Post shows that only 10.7 percent of Publix stores were owned by the company in 2006. The newspaper analyzed annual reports that Publix must file with the Securities & Exchange Commission because of the large amount of Publix stock owned by the company’s employee stock ownership program. In its 2016 annual report, Publix said it netted $2 billion of earnings on $34 billion of revenue last year.  [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth