After more than 60 years of operations, Rite Aid is no more.
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Last week, the Philadelphia-based pharmacy chain closed the last of its 89 remaining stores. This came after the chain in May filed for its second bankruptcy in two years.
Rite Aid was founded in 1962 and had more than 5,000 stores at its peak, The New York Times reported.
That total was down to around 2,300 stores when it first filed for bankruptcy in October 2023. At that time, the chain faced $3.3B in debts and more than 1,000 lawsuits related to its alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic by filling unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances.
Rite Aid’s store total had dwindled to just over 1,200 locations at the time of its second bankruptcy filing in May. In a press release accompanying the news of the second bankruptcy, then-CEO Matt Schroeder struck a hopeful tone that a buyer could be found for the brand.
“We are encouraged by meaningful interest from a number of potential national and regional strategic acquirors,” Schroeder said.
However, bankruptcy court documents obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer indicate that the pharmacy chain's restructuring plan included closing and selling off its remaining stores and warehouses.
Schroeder announced last month on LinkedIn that he had taken a position as chief financial officer at Spotless Brands.
The retail pharmacy market has been struggling for the right prescription for years. Some 30% of the nearly 89,000 retail pharmacies that were open between 2010 and 2020 had closed by 2021, according to a December 2024 study from health policy journal Health Affairs.
The closures have only accelerated since that time, led by contraction among the market’s top two chains.
After a period of intense expansion, CVS and Walgreens shrank their national store numbers by at least 8% from the fiscal years of 2019 to 2024, according to data from analytics company RetailStat.
In October 2024, Walgreens announced plans to shutter 1,200 stores over the next three years as part of an effort to dig out of a financial hole. CVS closed 900 locations between 2022 and 2024, and the company announced on an earnings call in February that it would pursue “further footprint optimization in 2025.” CVS subsequently announced it planned to close 271 stores by the end of 2025.
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