![\"Fred's](\"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/email\/170127_drgg_1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWith some help from Walgreens and Rite Aid and a more than a bit of luck (served up by the FTC), the one-time regional discount chain, Fred\u2019s Inc., could become the third largest drug-store chain in the US and take a giant step towards the company\u2019s stated goal of transforming itself into a national healthcare company.<\/p>\n
In December, Fred\u2019s agreed to purchase 865 Rite Aid locations as part of Walgreen and Rite Aid\u2019s plan to gain FTC favor for their pending merger, the same merger that\u2019s been in the works since October 2015.<\/p>\n
Fred\u2019s hopes, though, have been diminished in the last few days. Friday\u2019s deadline for the Walgreens-Rite Aid deal (upon which the Fred\u2019s deal hangs) came and went with no action from the FTC. For their part, Walgreens and Rite Aid are committed to continuing their pursuit of the deal and have again extended their self-imposed deadline to July 31, 2017.<\/p>\n
The bad news for Fred\u2019s is that recent reports note one of the largest hurdles in gaining FTC approval for the Walgreens-Rite Aid merger is the FTC\u2019s lack of confidence in Fred\u2019s ability to successfully integrate the Rite Aid stores.<\/p>\n
But what would a larger Fred\u2019s look like? The 865 stores Fred\u2019s intends to purchase have been described as largely representative of Rite Aid\u2019s overall performance. That\u2019s good news for Fred\u2019s in that it\u2019s not getting the dogs; the bad news is that the overall performance of Rite Aid hasn\u2019t been stellar. Add to that the fact that Fred\u2019s has been ringing up net losses and declines in same-store sales in recent quarters, and we can see why the FTC may be wary. Although, much of the increase in expenses can be placed in the \u201ctransformational\u201d bucket \u2013 cutting dead inventory weight, closing underperforming stores and bringing in consultants for the Rite Aid deal.<\/p>\n
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![\"Industry](\"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/email\/170127_drgg_2.jpg\")
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With 865 new stores, Fred\u2019s would more than double its total footprint to 1,500+ stores. And as Fred\u2019s current lineup only features 370 pharmacies amid its 650 locations, its pharmacy count would more than triple, likely necessitating a major overhaul of its pharmacy operations.<\/p>\n
If <\/em>and when the Walgreens, Rite Aid and Fred\u2019s deals close, Chain Store Guide<\/strong> will sort through the three companies\u2019 combined 230+ personnel and 13,000+ physical locations available to clients and customers via our Drug Store & HBC Chains PLUS<\/a> database and our custom market share<\/a> and store location services<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With some help from Walgreens and Rite Aid and a more than a bit of luck (served up by the FTC), the one-time regional discount chain, Fred\u2019s Inc., could become the third largest drug-store chain in the US and take a giant step towards the company\u2019s stated goal of transforming itself into a national healthcare… Continue reading Fred\u2019s Hopes to Triple Its Pharmacy Fleet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-8715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-hbc","tag-csg-exclusive","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}