I enjoy Scott Galloway’s popular podcast Prof G Markets, and I was listening to him and co-host Ed Elson discuss why the private equity giant Sycamore Partners - which specializes in squeezing blood out of failing retailers - is buying Walgreens for $10 billion. Walgreens is America’s second-largest drug store chain, and has been a public company for more than 100 years. “Going private,” particularly to a fund like Sycamore, is an admission of failure.
The trends for Walgreens aren’t good - it has closed a thousand stores since 2018, and plans to shut 1,200 more this year. And if you look at the gross operating income of the U.S. retail segment, it is collapsing.
— Matt Stoller, The Real Reason Walgreens Collapsed: It's not that Walgreens didn't modernize or couldn't compete with Amazon. The 124 year old company is being squeezed to death by monopolistic pharmacy benefit managers. BIG, Mar 14, 2025
"Free DVDs is one thing. But in recent days, people have realized that they can, in some cases, get free Redbox kiosks. In an August filing, Walgreens told the bankruptcy court that it has 5,400 abandoned kiosks at its stores, and that it is spending $184,000 a month keeping them powered. “Walgreens should not be required to continue to ‘store’ and power Redbox kiosks across the country without any form of payment,” the company wrote. And so tinkerers and reverse engineers have begun asking stores whether they can take the devices off their hands."
— Jason Koebler, Reverse Engineering Redbox, 404 Media, Oct 17, 2024
See also:Amanda Mull, Retailers Locked Up Their Products—and Broke Shopping in America. CVS, Target and other chains have barricaded everything from toiletries to cleaning supplies. It’s backfired in almost every way. Bloomberg, August 1, 2024.
In response to which, Roxane Gay said: "Locking up everything in Walgreens and CVS was, apparently, a really bad idea. It drives me crazy. It makes shopping for toothpaste, TOOTHPASTE, impossible."
"In states where abortion is still legal but the state legislature is working on anti-abortion measures, Walgreens has decided not to carry mifepristone – a common medication used in over 50% of abortions in this country." — Katie Reiter, national program coordinator for Jews for a Secular Democracy, via email to the organization's mailing list, May 5, 2023
"Walgreens, one of the nation's largest pharmacy chains, announced that it will not dispense abortion pills in at least 10 states where abortion remains legal. The decision came in response to a letter from 20 state attorneys general who oppose abortion rights, encouraging Walgreens not to make the drugs available in their states. Walgreens' decision is part of a pattern of support for anti-abortion officials, including significant donations to officials seeking to ban or dramatically restrict abortion."
— Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, How Walgreens supports the anti-abortion movement, Popular Information, Mar 06, 2023
"Yes, she smokes in her car. What of it? But only in the Walgreens parking lot next to the tutoring center where she works part-time, and only to spite her husband of twenty-odd years."
— Heather Brittain Bergstrom, the opening lines of Valley: An Essay, Narrative, October 2020
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