Fred’s To Complete Prescription File Transfer To Walgreens
Walgreens has been buying and partnering up for the last several years to expand their business, capabilities, and customer base. A global marketing communications partnership with Alliance Boots proved to be highly beneficial for the corporation. Most recently, Walgreens Boots Alliances and WPP bought out Rite Aid, even further expanding their hold on the pharmaceutical and retail market. It was earlier announced from Forbes that the company is now buying out yet another pharmacy. This particular takeover is only partial.
Fred’s Pharmacy announced just this past Thursday that it will be completely transferring 185 prescription files to Walgreens Boots Alliance. Fred’s interim chief executive and chief financial officer, Joe Anto, spoke with reporters on Thursday, giving a statement regarding Fred’s company fiscal third earnings, and elaborating on the transfer of prescriptions.
“As of December 12, 2018 we completed the sale of script files associated with approximately 138 locations to Walgreens and expect to complete the remaining 41 location transfers to Walgreens by the end of January 2019. As we have stated in the past, we are continuing to evaluate potential opportunities to monetize all our non-core assets including our retail pharmacy script portfolio as well as our real estate.”
These locations where the transfers will take place are all located across 10 Southeastern states in the United States. It is reported that the buyout transfer is for approximately $165 million USD, according to a Walgreens press release.
Although Fred’s is transferring its prescriptions and doing away with those particular pharmacy locations, the company plans to maintain retail operations at those stores. Fred’s currently has close to 600 retail store locations, and plans to continue operating those store, many of which are not located in the transferred region and will retain their pharmacy operations.
For the pharmacy employees from the Fred’s locations that are losing their pharmacies, the employees are being told to apply for available positions at Walgreens, stated the company. This is the same circumstances that various Rite Aid employees faced after Walgreens Boots Alliance bought out that entire pharmacy and retail branch.
After the announcement that the company would be transferring the 185 prescriptions to Walgreens Boots Alliance, the company also stated that this was due to their desire to “unlock shareholder value by monetizing non-core assets through strategic transactions,” in a press release.
Fred’s is a Memphis-based general merchandise and pharmacy chain. Prior to their announcement during the company-hosted release of its third quarter 2018 earnings, Fred’s went under question regarding its decisions and headquarters, cites Biz Journal.
