Albertson's to purchase remaining Rite Aid stores.
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Breaking news on the Wall Street Journal WSJ article link
The stores that weren’t sold to Walgreens are being bought out. Can’t say I’m surprised - Rite Aid was probably too small to survive on its own.
I guess Albertson’s wanted a bigger part of the retail drugstore market? As always, it will take a while for things to shake out before we know what this will do to coupons/wellness bonus cash/leftover plenti points.
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I’ve moved this to Deal Discussion since this news report contains no actual sales/deals.
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@fivetalents said in Albertson's to purchase remaining Rite Aid stores.:
I’ve moved this to Deal Discussion since this news report contains no actual sales/deals.
@fivetalents see note in flagged why this was moved back. grocery/drug is correct forum for this post.
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@ctujackbauer said in Albertson's to purchase remaining Rite Aid stores.:
Breaking news on the Wall Street Journal WSJ article link
The stores that weren’t sold to Walgreens are being bought out. Can’t say I’m surprised - Rite Aid was probably too small to survive on its own.
I guess Albertson’s wanted a bigger part of the retail drugstore market? As always, it will take a while for things to shake out before we know what this will do to coupons/wellness bonus cash/leftover plenti points.
good article here too that doesn’t require subscription to read.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-albertsons-rite-aide-20180220-story.html
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I scooped @MISTERCHEAP by a day! Were you on vacation or something?
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@ctujackbauer said in Albertson's to purchase remaining Rite Aid stores.
I guess Albertson’s wanted a bigger part of the retail drugstore market? As always, it will take a while for things to shake out before we know what this will do to coupons/wellness bonus cash/leftover plenti points.
It would be really nice if we were able to use left over Plenti Pts at an Albertson’s owned supermarket that has a RA pharmacy.
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@my4mainecoons so does this include Acme groceries? Acme is another division of Albertsons.They bought these stores from A&P about 18 months ago. 3 Acmes in my area share the same shopping centers with Rite aid and was told these stores were staying RA. (Walgreens didn’t want them) 2 Acmes have their own in store RX.
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I read that the stand-alone Rite Aid stores will remain with the Rite Aid name, so there will be little change once this sale goes through (if it does), just a different owner. Even though the article I read says they hope it is finalized by the summer, I know that is optimistic and if government approval is needed it could take considerably longer. Eventually most pharmacies inside Vons and Albertsons stores will change to Rite Aid pharmacies, according to the article I read at least. Time will tell what the loyalty system will be and what deals Albertsons will offer, but I know one thing: I sure am glad the stores in my area won’t be turning into Walgreens, which has almost no deals ever anymore. I guess all good things have to come to an end sometime. I still vividly remember when there were great +UP deals and there were no limits.
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@ctujackbauer LOL…sleeping on the job!
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@mrvietnam said in Albertson's to purchase remaining Rite Aid stores.:
I read that the stand-alone Rite Aid stores will remain with the Rite Aid name, so there will be little change once this sale goes through (if it does), just a different owner. Even though the article I read says they hope it is finalized by the summer, I know that is optimistic and if government approval is needed it could take considerably longer. Eventually most pharmacies inside Vons and Albertsons stores will change to Rite Aid pharmacies, according to the article I read at least. Time will tell what the loyalty system will be and what deals Albertsons will offer, but I know one thing: I sure am glad the stores in my area won’t be turning into Walgreens, which has almost no deals ever anymore. I guess all good things have to come to an end sometime. I still vividly remember when there were great +UP deals and there were no limits.
I agree, especially if the loyalty bucks could be spent at the supermarket operation on groceries! That would be awesome (since in my area, Acme is owned by Albertson’s parent company). I do wonder if some Rite Aid’s will close however, say the free standing is in the parking lot of the supermarket, do you really need a pharmacy in the supermarket too? Seems to be NOT cost effective, but time will tell.
I see no issue with this passing regulators, so how quickly they can make this happen remains to be seen, but who knows, maybe it can happen in 6 months time vs a year. With RA’s CEO staying in place and their HQ in Pennsy. staying open, I think that bodes well for existing RA customers.
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Whatever happened to the Walgreen / RA merge?
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@zennuts Initially Walgreens wanted to buy RA. FTC shot that down. So then Wags bought most of the RA stores. The transition of the purchased RA stores to Wags stores began in November 2017.**
The remaining RA stores, those not sold to Walgreen’s were just sold to Albertsons.
** Transition began in my Rite Aid stores on Jan. 30, 2018. Effective that date the pharmacy officially became a Walgreen’s while the front of store still says Rite Aid. The employees are now all Walgreen’s employees. They had to re-apply for their jobs, they have new benefits, etc. The top of my Rite Aid receipt shows the RA logo. Underneath where the store location is listed it now says “Walgreens dba Rite Aid Store #1234”. That’s the most obvious change. The complete transition including front of store appearance is supposed to take more than a year.
Most customers don’t notice a difference. For me the biggest difference is that my receipts no longer automatically report to SavingStar. I have to manually submit receipts to get credit. For purchases where I want a double dip I purchase in a non-Walgreens owned Rite Aid.
