Key Takeaways Kroger shares rose Thursday morning after the retailer said it is abandoning the Albertsons merger and restarting stock buybacks.The grocery chain said after the bell Wednesday that it will begin a new $7.

A federal judge blocked the deal and sided with the Federal Trade Commission, which raised antitrust concerns over the merger.

Kroger’s proposed merger with fellow grocery chain Albertsons ended in acrimony this week as a judge granted the Federal Trade Commissions’s request to block the deal on antitrust grounds. Albertsons then sued Kroger for allegedly not fulfilling its contractual obligations.