Demoulas family

Greek American family
The Demoulas family is a Greek American family that controls DeMoulas Super Markets, Inc., the company that operates the Market Basket chain of supermarkets. Beginning in 1990, two sides of the Demoulas family fought for control of DeMoulas Super Markets. The dispute ended in 2014, when the family of George Demoulas sold their shares to Frances Demoulas, Glorianne Demoulas, Arthur T. Demoulas and Caren Demoulas after protests by employees and customers.

Athanasios "Arthur" Demoulas was born in 1883. He was orphaned during the Greco Turkish War of 1897. During the Great Depression, Demoulas would give families who were struggling financially a free piece of bread with ham or allow them to purchase groceries on credit. ), and Evangelos (1925–1930).

John Demoulas was born on March 22, 1915. During his youth, he worked in his family's market. As an adult he ran a chain of liquor stores, a bar in Lowell (the Golden Nugget), and Marion's Cafe, also in Lowell. John Demoulas died on March 8, 2000. Demoulas had four children (John, Arthur, Pamela, and Kathleen) with his wife Marion and five illegitimate children with his mistress Dorothy Bedard (Melveen, Mike, Dorothy, George, and Patricia). In 1999, one of his illegitimate sons had his name legally changed from George Bedard to George DeMoulas. Demoulas was a member of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church served as its president. He received the title of Archon Depoutatos from Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a layman by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Evanthea Demoulas died on February 8, 2008, in Westwood, Massachusetts.

Angelo "Evan" George Demoulas was born on April 17, 1955. He graduated from Dracut High School and attended Bridgton Academy and Bentley College. At Dracut High, Demoulas was a standout running back on the school's football team. Demoulas attended meat cutting school and was given a job in DeMoulas' meat department. He was also appointed to the company's board of directors. He was survived by his wife, Rafaele Evans Demoulas, who was pregnant with their daughter at the time. Outside of Market Basket, Demoulas is a member of the board of the Boston Police Foundation. Outside of Market Basket, Demoulas was known for his philanthropy. He gave millions of dollars to many causes, including programs for the blind and college scholarships. He was credited with helping revitalize the Acre by building a new supermarket and providing money for new infrastructure. Demoulas died on May 24, 2003, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Mike and Irene Demoulas had four children; Frances (1950–), Glorianne (1952–), Arthur T. (1955–), and Caren (1959–).

Arthur Telemachus Demoulas was born in 1955. In 2008, Demoulas was named president and CEO of DeMoulas Super Markets, Inc. During his tenure as CEO, sales grew from $3 billion a year to $4 billion, the number of employees grew from 14,000 to 25,000. During the same time, competitors Stop & Shop and Shaw's closed many of their stores due to financial troubles. Market Basket also faced new competition from discount grocer Wegmans Arthur T. was known for his ability to remember his employees names, birthdays, and milestones, attending many of their weddings and funerals, checking in on ill workers, and asking about the spouses and children of his employees. He was seen as a father figure by a number of his employees and compared to It's a Wonderful Life protagonist George Bailey for his willingness to put people over profit. However, Demoulas' opponents criticized him for being "openly defiant" of the board of directors and having a "dictatorial" management style. A few weeks after the decision, George's son Arthur S. Demoulas filed a second suit, this time alleging that Mike Demoulas had diverted assets from the jointly owned family company, Demoulas Super Markets, to ones controlled by him and his children, including Market Basket. After an eighty four day bench trial, judge Maria Lopez found in favor of the plaintiffs. Lopez awarded George's family about $206 million for dividends on stock that had been improperly diverted and 50.5% of the company. She also ordered that all of the assets of Market Basket and the other companies controlled by Mike Demoulas and his family be transferred to Demoulas Super Markets and that Mike Demoulas be removed as president of the company. In early September 1990, six bugs were found at the headquarters of DeMoulas Super Markets. It was alleged that Arthur S. Demoulas had planted the bugs in order to listen to the legal strategy of the other side of the Demoulas family. Michael Kettenbach, the son in law of Mike Demoulas, sued Arthur S. Demoulas, claiming that Demoulas had "invaded his privacy rights by having listening devices planted at DSM headquarters." In 1994, a jury found in favor of Arthur S. Demoulas. In 1991, George Demoulas' family sued Mike Demoulas, Arthur T. Demoulas, and DeMoulas Super Markets, Inc. chief financial officer D. Harold Sullivan, alleging that the three violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 by using their positions as the trustees of the company's employee profit sharing plan to make fiscally irresponsible real estate loans to friends and business associates. The United States Department of Labor filed a similar complaint six months later. On May 31, 1994, the Department of Labor announced that they had reached a settlement in which the trustees agreed to sell $22 million of the loans by July 11 or purchase them themselves as well as pay the plan $750,000 to make up for the dropped interest rates on the loans (unless the loan recipients paid the money instead). The trustees also agreed not to make any similar investments. The trustees admitted no wrongdoing in the case. Despite the heavy investment in risky real estate loans, the plan never posted a loss. In the civil case, Judge Rya W. Zobel ruled that the trustees' actions were "wrong but not corrupt" and that the settlement with the Department of Labor was "an adequate remedy". Therefore, she denied the request to have them removed. In 1997, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court's ruling that Arthur T. Demoulas had presented the DeMoulas Super Markets Board of Directors with “misleading, inaccurate, and materially incomplete” information in order to receive a rejection and keep his cousins from receiving any of the profits from Lee Drug, a pharmacy chain he started after the board rejected his proposal to start a pharmacy division of Market Basket. In a 2010 memo to the Board of Directors, Arthur S. Demoulas accused Arthur T. Demoulas of "plundering" millions by paying millions in excessive real estate prices for new Market Basket store locations. One example cited in the memo alleged that Arthur T. had recommended that the company pay $20.9 million to purchase a property in Bourne, Massachusetts, owned by an entity in which he was a major investor. After the sale, Arthur S. had the property appraised by a Boston real estate executive, who valued the property at $9 million. He also accused Arthur T. of paying "grossly excessive fees" to Retail Development and Management Inc., a real estate firmed owned by his brothers in law Michael Kettenbach and Joseph Pasquale that oversaw Market Basket's real estate and helped it develop new stores. He and his attorneys argued that the 7.5% of the total development costs "was far in excess" of the prevailing market rate of 2% to 3%. Arthur T. denied his cousin's claim. He argued that Arthur S. trumped up the charges in order to take control of the company and pay himself and the other shareholders more money. Attorneys for Arthur T. noted that Cushman & Wakefield later appraised the Bourne property at $25.5 million. Arthur T. also defended his arrangement with Kettenbach and Pasquale, which he said allowed Market Basket to purchase properties without alerting its competitors, thus avoiding a bidding war and saving the company money. On June 23, 2014, Arthur T. Demoulas was fired by the board of directors. In response to his firing, six high level managers resigned, and 300 employees held a rally outside Market Basket's Chelsea, Massachusetts, flagship store on June 24. Beginning on July 18, 300 warehouse workers and 68 drivers refused to make deliveries, which left store shelves severely depleted. On August 27, 2014, after months of protest by Market Basket employees and customers, the shareholders of DeMoulas Super Markets, Inc. reached an agreement to sell the remaining 50.5% shares of the company to Arthur T. Demoulas for $1.5 billion.

In July 2014, Forbes estimated the Demoulas family's net worth to be $2.2 billion. They also ranked the family as the 104th richest family in the United States. The following year, Forbes put their value at $3.3 Billion, which made them the 83rd richest family in the U. S. The Demoulas family dropped off the Forbes list in 2016.