In a follow up to prior pieces I have done on the proposed Walgreens – Rite Aid merger which would combine two of the largest retail drug chains in the United States, it appears that the proposal is taking another interesting twist.
In reports from Bloomberg and other sources, Walgreens has agreed to increase the number of stores it will sell to Fred’s, a Southeastern based retail drug chain, from 865 store locations to a higher but undisclosed amount. This is being done to “up the ante” to appeal to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which in my prior work on this topic, had demonstrated reluctance over the merger proposal.
The FTC displayed so much reluctance that myself and some others who have written about M&A activity of this type, felt that the merger may end up being blocked. That “where there is smoke, there is fire” scenario played out because Walgreens efforts with this enhancement to the deal they have with Fred’s certainly indicates that they felt the merger might get scuttled by the FTC.
In the enhanced version of Walgreens deal with Fred’s, Walgreens would also sell the southern based chain certain distribution centers, technology, and also would transfer some key executives from Rite Aid into similar roles at Fred’s. This was all done to help decrease the concerns that the FTC has seemingly held for the Walgreens-Rite Aid merger with regard to the size and scope of the acquisition.
The enhancement to the deal by Walgreens does not address the underlying cause for skepticism from the FTC in the first place: that Fred’s cannot double the size of its store footprint and survive. The stock price for Fred’s has increased about 30% with all of the renewed activity around this deal.
Walgreens-Rite Aid is currently caught in a scenario that many entities in a merger this large and far-reaching have had to grapple with in the past which is the sale of enough assets to not further dilute your own valuation, but sell enough assets to gain approval from the FTC. It can be a tricky situation and it is not always easy to find another company within your industry segment to make that type of asset sell off transpire in an expedient way.
The emergence of Fred’s in a “right place, right time” type of scenario with their business standing to increase dramatically in size, gain access to new geographic markets, and gain the use of some of the branding power of Rite Aid where the Fred’s brand name does not have the same recognition.
The FTC is reluctant, and they might remain unchanged in those sentiments, because they have been “burned” in the past with approvals of large scale M&A proposals which ended up going badly. Some of those deals ended up also damaging the third party company involved, in this case the role being played by Fred’s, where that third party company swallowed up assets which ended up bankrupting them.
The merger of Walgreens and Rite Aid would create a gigantic retail drug powerhouse that on the one hand could rival CVS, and on the other hand could end up limiting consumer choice. This merger also could have negative potential consequences for consumers with prescription drug costs being set by only a handful of companies. This is the area where some analysts close to this potential merger feel that the FTC is also concerned.
Walgreens maintains that they have grown to their capacity and that the only way that both they and Rite Aid can continue to compete and survive with stiff competition from CVS in this industry space, is to merge together. Walgreens seems intent on doing whatever is necessary to satisfy the FTC in order to consummate this deal. It could even mean involving another retail drug store chain, though I am not sure who that could be at this point. It could be a company like Safeway or Publix but those two companies have a current store geographic footprint that is much different than the Northeast heavy presence of Rite Aid.
The proposal gets complicated by the reports that some within the industry do not understand why Rite Aid is selling, basically with the thought process that being number 3, is a good place to be. Walgreens was pretty dogged in their presentation of offers for the Rite Aid business, continuing to pursue this blockbuster potential merger.
The FTC and other regulators will now review this enhanced version of the deal that Walgreens is offering to Fred’s. A determination will be made on whether the asset divestiture creates a path for the very large merger between Walgreens and Rite Aid to take place.
The exact parameters will become clear in the weeks and months ahead as we head through spring and into the summer months. The outcome is uncertain, but in the past when I have observed a company take the steps that Walgreens has undertaken to gain merger approval, that company usually gets what it wants.