New York City — Walgreens is buying Rite Aid for approximately $9.41 billion in cash, creating a drugstore giant with nearly 18,000 stores around the world. The deal combines the largest and third-largest U.S. drugstore chains, based on store counts.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. has more than 13,100 stores globally. Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid, which first opened in the 1960s, has more than 4,600 stores in the U.S.
The companies expect the deal to close in the second half of 2016.
The merger comes less than year after Walgreens bought European health and beauty retailer Alliance Boots. Besides its namesake stores, Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens also owns Duane Reade stores.
Rite Aid stores will initially keep the Rite Aid name after the deal closes, according to Walgreens, but that may change over time.
SOURCE: Associated Press