Rumors About Walgreens Buying Rite Aid

[Alpha8472]

http://www.drugstorenews.com/article/fo ... peculation

There are rumors that Walgreens may be willing to buy Rite Aid.

Here is what recently happened in the past few months. Walgreens had a dispute with Express Scripts. Customers with Express Scripts insurance can no longer get prescriptions from Walgreens because Walgreens had a disagreement with Express Scripts.

In the past few months, Walgreens has lost a ton of business. Customers have been leaving Walgreens and flocking to other pharmacies such as Rite Aid, CVS, and Target.

Walgreens could be in serious financial trouble if they cannot solve this disagreement. They are so desperate that they are willing to buy Rite Aid. With a combined store count of Rite Aid and Walgreens, they will become so powerful that they could force Express Scripts to once again be accepted at Walgreens.

However, Walgreens is a shrewd company. They will no doubt cut costs and close down unprofitable Rite Aid stores and only keep the most profitable ones. Areas with both Rite Aid and Walgreens stores could see many store closures and many lay-offs of employees.

Walgreens could become a monopoly in many cities and start charging outrageously high prices. Walgreens is already a high priced store.

As much as I dislike some of Rite Aid's rundown stores, I do believe that Rite Aid prices are cheaper than Walgreens and CVS on most items.

[Super S]

I don't see this happening. Walgreens seems to be more consistent with their store designs and layout and does a better job of keeping their stores updated. Their stores also seem to have a lot more customer traffic than Rite Aid even with the Express Scripts issues. Although Rite Aid is slowly replacing some of their older locations, the layouts and sizes are all over the place and a lot of their stores don't fit Walgreens model at all.