sws4420
06-05-2007, 06:54 AM
Rite Aid Corp. said Monday it has completed its acquisition of 1,854 Brooks and Eckerd stores, including 353 locations in New York state.
Rite Aid said it will re-brand the stores under its own name, giving it 730 stores in New York. The nearly $4 billion cash-and-stock acquisition gives Rite Aid about 5,000 stores nationwide.
The acquisition announcement was not a surprise, as the Pennsylvania drugstore chain revealed last August its intentions to buy Brooks and Eckerd locations from the Jean Coutu Group of Canada.
The acquisition is Rite Aid's first major deal after a turnaround team arrived in late 1999 to pull the company from the brink of bankruptcy.
For some, though, the deal raised concerns about a potential lack of competition.
As a result, the Federal Trade Commission and several states, including New York, on Monday said they had reached a settlement with Rite Aid that requires the chain to sell 26 stores nationally, eight of them in New York, including a location at the Price Chopper Plaza in Mechanicville.
The Rite Aid in Mechanicville, along with an Eckerd in Lake Placid, have already been sold to Medicine Shoppe International, a pharmacy chain based in suburban St. Louis that has locations in Fort Plain, Walden and in western Massachusetts.
The eight locations that must be sold were chosen after an investigation by the New York attorney general's office found those communities would be particularly lacking in drug store competition once Eckerd was acquired.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Monday predicted the settlement will result in chains such as Walgreens or Kinney -- as well as Medicine Shoppe -- opening for the first time in the mostly rural communities, which include Yorkville, Boonville, Grand Island, Owego, Leroy and Wellsville.
Rite Aid on Monday said it will transition the acquired stores to its brand over the next 16 months. Customers, the chain said, most immediately will notice Rite Aid private brand products for sale.
Rite Aid also said it might close as many as 200 stores in areas where there is overlap. It was not clear on Monday whether any of the 22 Eckerd or 21 Rite Aid stores in Albany, Saratoga, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties would be targeted for closure.
The sale makes Rite Aid the third largest drugstore chain nationally, after Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS, with nearly 6,200 stores, and Walgreens, of Deerfield, Ill., which has about 5,700 stores.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=595216&category=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=6/5/2007
Rite Aid said it will re-brand the stores under its own name, giving it 730 stores in New York. The nearly $4 billion cash-and-stock acquisition gives Rite Aid about 5,000 stores nationwide.
The acquisition announcement was not a surprise, as the Pennsylvania drugstore chain revealed last August its intentions to buy Brooks and Eckerd locations from the Jean Coutu Group of Canada.
The acquisition is Rite Aid's first major deal after a turnaround team arrived in late 1999 to pull the company from the brink of bankruptcy.
For some, though, the deal raised concerns about a potential lack of competition.
As a result, the Federal Trade Commission and several states, including New York, on Monday said they had reached a settlement with Rite Aid that requires the chain to sell 26 stores nationally, eight of them in New York, including a location at the Price Chopper Plaza in Mechanicville.
The Rite Aid in Mechanicville, along with an Eckerd in Lake Placid, have already been sold to Medicine Shoppe International, a pharmacy chain based in suburban St. Louis that has locations in Fort Plain, Walden and in western Massachusetts.
The eight locations that must be sold were chosen after an investigation by the New York attorney general's office found those communities would be particularly lacking in drug store competition once Eckerd was acquired.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Monday predicted the settlement will result in chains such as Walgreens or Kinney -- as well as Medicine Shoppe -- opening for the first time in the mostly rural communities, which include Yorkville, Boonville, Grand Island, Owego, Leroy and Wellsville.
Rite Aid on Monday said it will transition the acquired stores to its brand over the next 16 months. Customers, the chain said, most immediately will notice Rite Aid private brand products for sale.
Rite Aid also said it might close as many as 200 stores in areas where there is overlap. It was not clear on Monday whether any of the 22 Eckerd or 21 Rite Aid stores in Albany, Saratoga, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties would be targeted for closure.
The sale makes Rite Aid the third largest drugstore chain nationally, after Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS, with nearly 6,200 stores, and Walgreens, of Deerfield, Ill., which has about 5,700 stores.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=595216&category=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=6/5/2007