Hawaii won’t say Aloha to Longs name

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. Assuming the CVS acquisition goes through as planned later this year, Longs Drug will disappear from the retail landscape in California after a 70-year run but that won’t be the case in Hawaii.

“We will leave the Hawaiian market as Longs,” said CVS chairman and chief executive officer Tom Ryan. “Hawaiians see Longs as a homegrown chain and it’s really a stand alone market.”

Longs opened its first store in Hawaii in 1954 and it’s dominated the state since then. It has 39 stores there, with several more on the way, and is far and away the No. 1 player in the market, though Walgreens opened its first store there last year and is expanding.

But in the more competitive atmosphere of California, CVS plans to convert the more than 450 stores to its own brand. “California will become a CVS market,” said Ryan, adding that the conversion should be complete by the end of 2009.

CVS already has a sizeable presence in California, courtesy of its purchase of 335 stand-alone Sav-On stores in 2006, and the addition of Longs stores will make it the top drug retailer in the state with more than 830 stores. But what remains to be seen is how much overlap there will be in some markets, particularly in Southern California, though Longs Drug chief executive officer Warren Bryant suggested the merger shouldn’t produce much in the way of cannibalization.

“There’s very little geographic overlap,” said Bryant. “The only two broad markets we have (with CVS)—Southern California and Las Vegas—largely have a complimentary footprint.”