Dollar General, Family Dollar still in talks with FTC

(Reuters) - Dollar General Corp said it is in talks with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the number of stores it will have to sell to receive approval for an acquisition of Family Dollar Inc.

Family Dollar, which has opted for a lower cash-and-stock offer from Dollar Tree Inc, said on Wednesday it has postponed a shareholders' meeting to Dec. 23 from Dec. 11.

Family Dollar said it expects to update its shareholders by the end of the first week of December about the extent of divestitures the FTC seeks to approve a deal with Dollar Tree.

Dollar General said it expects to update Family Dollar shareholders about its talks with FTC in the "coming weeks".

The New York Post reported that Dollar General may have to divest more than 4,000 stores to win approval for a deal or be forced to raise its $80 per-share bid. (http://bit.ly/1AgITxs)

The No.1 U.S. deep-discount retailer agreed in September to sell up to 1,500 stores.

Dollar General's shares fell about 3 percent to $64.20 in extended trading. Family Dollar's shares closed down less than 1 percent at $78.45 on the New York Stock Exchange while Dollar Tree shares closed up 1 percent at $62.63 on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat Raman and Nayan Das in Bangalore; Editing by Robin Paxton and Don Sebastian)