Updated: Walgreens Confirms Rite Aid Purchase

By LIZ TAURASI (Patch Staff)

Walgreens Boots Alliance confirmed Tuesday it will acquire the Rite Aid Corp. for $17.2 billion in a deal that unites the nation’s second and third largest drugstore chains.

The “definitive agreement” means Deerfield-based Walgreens will acquire all outstanding shares of Rite Aid for $9 per share in cash, totaling $17.2 billion.

Over the past year, several area Walgreens closed with prescriptions transferred to nearby Rite Aids.

A Reading location was closed in 2014.

Walgreens also operates under the name “Duane Reade.”

According to the WSJ, “Putting their drugstore networks together could yield cost savings at a time when the companies have been beset by drug-cost inflation. Other benefits could be derived from marrying Walgreens’ wholesale operation with Rite Aid.”

Rite Aid, which is based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, has about 4,600 drugstores in 31 states. Only Walgreens and CVS are larger chains.

In April 2014, Walgreens announced it would close 200 stores in the U.S., months after it purchased European drugstore chain Alliance Boots.

That wasn’t the first time Walgreens shuttered stores in the area. In 2014, Walgreens announced a plan to close more than 70 stores across the country to help optimize the company’s assets. The Walgreens in Reading was one of those locations.

The 2014 closures followed a 2012 announcement that the company entered into an agreement to purchase the 144-unit USA Drug, which operates in Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Patch Staffer Tim Moran contributed to this report.