Walgreens is preparing to close roughly 600 drugstores. The plan follows a deal with rival Rite Aid, under which Walgreens is buying close to 2,000 stores for a total of $4.38 billion.
Most of the stores that close will be former Rite Aid locations, according to company spokesman Michael Polzin. He said Walgreens will look first at stores that sit within one mile of another store in its network.
The company says it will handle the closures so that customers are not affected. However, it has not yet named the stores that will shut down.
The purchase was announced last month and has now been completed. Closures will start next spring, and the process will then run over the next 18 months.
Walgreens runs more than 13,200 stores around the world. Before this deal, it tried to buy all of Rite Aid, but that larger takeover fell through for a number of reasons. As a result, the company settled for a smaller share of its rival’s locations.