The Smithville Rite Aid store is now a Walgreens Pharmacy.
The pharmacy is apparently among nearly 2,000 Rite Aid stores across the country which have been purchased by Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy chain in the U.S.
Walgreens and Rite Aid recently announced that federal regulators had approved Walgreens’ purchase of 1,932 Rite Aid stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia, about 250 fewer stores than they had first planned.
According to a report on www.time.com, Walgreens currently has roughly 8,175 locations in the U.S., second only to CVS (9,709) in terms of pharmacy chains. For two years, Walgreens had waged a campaign to boost its footprint by scooping up Rite Aid locations. Over the summer Walgreens scrapped its original plan to purchase 2,186 Rite Aids—but it came to an agreement more recently to buy 1,932 of the stores, at a cost of $4.375 billion in cash and other considerations, according to the Walgreens fourth-quarter earnings report.
The purchase would theoretically give Walgreens over 10,000 store locations, vaulting it into the top spot over CVS as America’s biggest pharmacy chain. But Walgreens isn’t just adding stores; it plans on subtracting hundreds too, the report on www.time.com stated.
After receiving regulatory clearance for the Rite Aid purchase, Walgreens “has been able to carry out a complete review of its expected combined U.S. store portfolio to determine the scope of a program to optimize locations,” a company release stated.
Some stores will be closed. The company anticipates that it will shutter roughly 600 retail locations in that “optimizing” process, starting next spring, USA Today reported. Walgreens hasn’t said which locations will be closed, but it’s expected that most of them will be among the ranks of the Rite Aid stores it’s buying, and that the vast majority of closures will be within one mile of another Walgreens-owned store.
All the store closures should be complete within 18 months, Walgreens says. The company plans on spending $500 million over the next three years to convert Rite Aid stores it isn’t closing into Walgreens.
Meanwhile, Rite Aid will still be in the pharmacy business. After the sale to Walgreens is complete, Rite Aid will still have roughly 2,600 stores in the U.S., according to CNN.
According to a report on coupons in the news.com. “Several states that were to retain just a small handful of Rite Aid stores, will now have none. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Tennessee and West Virginia now join Indiana, South Carolina, Utah and Washington DC as locations where there will be no Rite Aids whatsoever after the deal goes through. All existing Rite Aid stores there will be sold to Walgreens in the revised deal.
Meanwhile, several Northeastern states will hold onto more Rite Aids than originally planned. The bulk of the roughly 250 Rite Aid stores that are no longer part of the deal with Walgreens, are located in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. In addition, Idaho, which was to sell off several Rite Aid stores, will now keep them all.
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