Walgreens expands cost management program

Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens Boots Alliance is continuing its global “transformation cost management program,” which has been described by company executives as a key pathway to the company’s future, by closing 200 U.K. Boots drugstore locations.

“Most importantly, this program will help drive a structural change in the company, making us a more efficient, more agile and more responsive organization,” Walgreens Boots Alliance Chief Executive Officer Stefano Pessina told analysts on the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings call last week.

Disclosed late last week, Walgreens’ plan to shutter 200 U.K. stores and fuse them with other Boots locations comes after a decision announced earlier this year to shutter more Rite Aid drugstores in the U.S. than originally anticipated.

According to Forbes, the company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in order to update its systems and infrastructure. Walgreens’ capital spending within the U.S. includes integration costs through the end of fiscal 2020 of converting Rite Aid stores it purchased in the last two years into Walgreens.

To read the Forbes article, click here.