Walgreens closing 200 stores

By Rebecca Cooper  – Senior Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal August 7, 2019

Walgreens parent company said it would close hundreds of stores in the U.S just a few months after it said it would close a similar number in the U.K.

The drugstore giant will close around 200 stores in the U.S., the company said in Securities and Exchange Commission disclosures Tuesday.

The news followed an earlier announcement that Walgreens’ parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA) of Deerfield, Illinois, would close a similar number of stores in the United Kingdom.

The U.S. closures are part of a “transformational cost management program” expected to save the company $1.5 billion by 2022. The closures come after Walgreens Boots conducted a comprehensive review of Walgreens’ U.S. real estate footprint, according to the filing.

The announcement did not disclose the list of Walgreens stores that would close, and the company does not intend to publish one, according to a CNBC report. 

The 200 stores are just a small portion of Walgreens’ total U.S. portfolio; it had more than 9,500 stores in the U.S. at this time last year. 

Walgreens has dozens of stores across the Philadelphia area.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2019/08/07/walgreens-closing-200stores.html?ana=e_me_set3&j=89761421&t=Morning&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpGaU5qWTROekEwWTJGaCIsInQiOiJXNFFVSWJ5QmFMektvN2dvbUhKZ1NQSU05YXdMZ3BtT2FXV0hPTFRHd1FSNndqSWswRW1rSDk3T2o1VnZpaHhHYVl6U1wvYmQwbmZZNWIySU5MVVNYTTlXb3JWSGZVMXZvK3NVOG1Vc08xdDhhOCtcL1phXC9qU3A1anlmT1JZQ2RhTiJ9