A spokesperson for Market Basket CEO Arthur “Artie T.” Demoulas claims that an investigation into whether Demoulas was considering leading a work stoppage is nothing more than a facade for a “hostile takeover.”
“Under Mr. Demoulas’ leadership in December of 2024, the company paid off $1.6 billion in debt that financed the purchase of the company in 2014,” said spokesperson Justine Griffin in an email on Thursday. “The company is currently operating at its peak performance and the notion that this board is going to conduct an investigation is a farcical cover for a hostile takeover.”
Demoulas was placed on paid administrative leave on Wednesday following disputes with the company’s board.
Griffin claims that Demoulas’s three sisters and the three board members whom they appointed were involved in the ouster.
Additionally, Demoulas’s daughter, Madeline, and son, Telemachus, and several other Market Basket executives were also placed on leave, Griffin said.
The board wrote in a memo on Wednesday it had received “credible allegations” that the CEO was planning “a disruption of the business.”
“The Executive Committee believes that Mr. Demoulas and others have taken these steps as improper retaliation for the Board’s directives requiring the CEO to work with the Board regarding the most basic corporate oversight and to provide the Board access to key employees,” the company said in a statement. “Mr. Demoulas has also resisted an appropriate succession plan for Market Basket, asserting that he has the unilateral right to appoint his children to succeed him without any consideration of the view of the Board or the majority owners of Market Basket.”
No employee jobs, salaries or benefits will be affected by this news, the memo reads.
The news of Demoulas’ ouster comes 11 years after he was fired from his position in 2014, with another wing of the Demoulas family, led by his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas, taking over. His firing resulted in two months of protests conducted by Market Basket employees , which eventually led to Arthur T. Demoulas and his sisters buying out the other family members’ shares in the company .
Market Basket operates close to 100 stores in New England .
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