Drugstore Downsizing: CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid To Close Nearly 1,500 Stores [View all]

- Forbes, Sept. 27, 2023.

The nation’s largest drugstore chains are facing mounting pressure, and they’ve prescribed the same script to cure their ills: closing stores.

Already drowning in $3.3 billion in debt and facing pending opioid-related lawsuit settlements, Rite AidRAD -3.6%, the nation’s third-ranked pharmacy chain behind CVS and Walgreens, is preparing for bankruptcy.

As part of ongoing negotiations, it proposes to close 400 to 500 of its 2,100 stores, though its bondholders want even more to shutter. Its retail pharmacy segment generated $17.8 billion last year and $288 million in adjusted EBITDA. Earlier this year, number two CVS completed a strategic review and announced plans to shutter 900 stores between 2022 and 2024. It’s already pulled the plug on 300 of them.

GlobalData analyst Neil Saunders shared with CNN that too many of its stores have fallen into disrepair, with “bad lighting, depressing interiors, messy merchandising and a weak assortment of products. They are not destinations or places where people go out of anything other than necessity."...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/09/27/drugstore-downsizing-cvs-walgreens-and-rite-aid-to-close-nearly-1500-stores/