U.S. supermarket giant Albertsons, headquarted in Boise, Idaho, announced plans Tuesday to acquire Rite Aid, the nation’s third-largest drugstore chain.
The deal would create a new company with about $83 billion in annual sales and 4,900 stores across the country.
Some Rite Aids will continue to operate as stand-alone stores, according to CNN Money. There are several Rite Aids in Butler County, including a location on Butler’s Main Street that was built a couple years ago as part of the city’s Centre City project.
Walgreens wanted to buy up all of Rite Aid in 2015, but federal regulators nixed that agreement on antitrust grounds. In September, the two companies announced a scaled back version for nearly 2,000 of Rite Aid’s stores. That left Rite Aid with about 2,600 stores.
Rite Aid is currently headquartered in Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg.
The move will allow Albertsons to become a “fully integrated one-stop-shop.”
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