Walgreens Boots Alliance will shutter 150 U.S. Walgreens stores and 300 UK-based Boots locations as part of cost-cutting efforts, according to company officials on the pharmacy giant’s Q3 2023 earnings call. The specific stores that will be targeted have not been announced, but the U.S. locations are expected to close by the end of August 2024.
The closures are part of Walgreens’ plan of “accelerating our portfolio optimization to further simplify the business,” according to CFO James Kehoe. This effort also included selling 10.8 million shares of Option Care Health for proceeds of approximately $330 million to help Walgreens pay down debt and support its broader healthcare transformation.
