H-E-B announced Wednesday the Texas grocery store giant is acquiring five Albertsons stores located in Austin, Round Rock and West Lake Hills.

The agreement was finalized Tuesday, according to a news release from H-E-B.

H-E-B is the region's leading grocer and is trying to fend off Wal-Mart, which is now the area's second leading supermarket.

Idaho-based Albertsons has been struggling in the highly competitive market and recently closed several stores both locally and around the country.

H-E-B says the move will help the company keep up with the area's rapid growth, especially in northwest Austin and eastern Williamson County, where the population has exploded in recent years.

“Central Texas is growing fast and this is part of our long term plan to keep up with that growth,” said Jeff Thomas, H-E-B Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Central Texas Region, in a news release. “We’ve been wanting to serve these neighborhoods for a long time and now we’re looking forward to bringing them our lower prices, fresh foods and quality products.”

According to H-E-B representatives, Albertsons will spend the next two months liquidating its store inventories. Then H-E-B will come in, renovate the stores and re-stock the shelves with its items.

Albertsons is expected to close the stores in early November, and then three of the stores are expected to reopen as H-E-B's sometime in December 2007 and February 2008.

Two stores will not reopen because of how close they are to existing H-E-B stores.

The stores affected are:

• 3750 Gattis School Road, Round Rock, TX 78664
• 12860 Research Blvd., Austin, TX 78750
• 701 Capital of Texas Highway, West Lake Hills, TX 78746
• 7100 Hwy 290 West, Austin, TX 78736
• 1819 South Pleasant Valley Road, Austin, TX 78741

H-E-B will operate more than 45 stores in the Austin-Round Rock area once the acquisition is complete.