The Walgreens logo is displayed in a Walgreens store on October 15, 2024 in San Rafael, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty images
Pharmacy chain in difficulty Walgreens Go private.
On Thursday, the company indicated that it had signed an agreement with the Sycamore Partners Investment Capital Company which would withdraw it from the public market for a capital value of approximately $ 10 billion.
Sycamore will pay $ 11.45 per cash action for Walgreens, representing a bonus of around 8% of the action price of the action on Thursday. Shareholders could also receive up to $ 3 more per share in the future from sales of Walgreens primary care companies, notably Village Medical, Summit Health and Citymd.
Walgreens said that the total transaction value could reach $ 23.7 billion when including debt and downward payments.
Walgreens and Sycamore are expected to conclude the deprivation agreement in the fourth quarter of this year. Walgreens’ shares jumped more than 5% of exchanges after opening hours Thursday before being interrupted.
The historic agreement puts an end to the tumultuous race of Walgreens as a public company, which began in 1927. Thursday morning, the shares of the company increased by more than 15% for 2025, but the action was still down more than 48% in last year and had dropped by 70% in the last three years.
“While we are progressing in relation to our ambitious recovery strategy, the creation of significant value will take time, concentration and change that is better managed as a private company,” Walgreens CEO, Tim Wentworth, said on Thursday, who entered the role in 2023. “Sycamore will provide us with the expertise and experience of a partner with successful retail reversals.
Stefan Kaluzny, director general of Sycamore, said that in the press release, the transaction reflects the company’s confidence in the “model based on Walgreens pharmacy and the essential role in driving better results for patients, customers and communities”.
Walgreens will maintain its headquarters in Chicago. The company currently has more than 310,000 employees worldwide and 12,500 retail pharmacy locations in the United States, Europe and Latin America, the press release said. Walgreens still plans to publish its revenues from the second quarter on April 8.
Walgreens’ market value reached a peak of more than $ 100 billion in 2015 while investors gained confidence in its health activities and expansion plans, making it one of the most eminent American retail companies.
But the market capitalization of the company reached less than $ 8 billion at the end of 2024 due to the competition of its main rivals, grocery chains, large area retailers and Amazonas well as a multitude of challenges. Walgreens was pressed by the transition outside the cocovated pandemic, the reimbursement of the pharmacy, the opposite winds, softer consumption expenses and a disturbed thrust in health care.
Walgreens and CVS have been pivoted for years from expansion in stores to closing hundreds of retail pharmacy sites in the United States to consolidate profits. But unlike CVS, which diversified its business model by offering insurance and pharmacy services, Walgreens has largely doubled on its retail pharmacy activity now.
In October, Walgreens said that she planned to close approximately 1,200 of her pharmacies over the next three years, including 500 during the year 2025 only. Walgreens has approximately 8,700 locations in the United States, of which it is not profitable. The company has also reduced its efforts in primary care by reducing its participation in Provider VillageMD.
Walgreens called on the veteran of the Tim Wentworth health care industry as a new CEO at the end of 2023 to help regain its place.
The company would have been considered a potential objective of investment capital in the past.
In 2019, the KKR investment company KKR made a buyout of around $ 70 billion in Walgreens, Financial Times and Bloomberg reported at the time.