Top Retailers

NEW YORK Rite Aid has been fighting off the delisting of its shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange since September, and although the company had the approval of its investors to execute a reverse-split in its back pocket, certainly that was a card management didn’t want to play if it could avoid it.

NEW YORK Look for more changes in the look and feel of the Walgreens drug store.

It was easy to like Vern Brunner.

Independent Pharmacy Cooperative
CEO/EVP: Donald Anderson
Corp. Offices: Sun Prairie, Wis.
Number of Members: 3,300
Web page: www.ipcrx.com

It could have been so much worse.

That conclusion, apparently, is what investors drew from Walgreens’ sales and earnings report for the second quarter ended Feb. 28. And it was enough to push the company’s stock price up sharply and burnish the investment outlook for other drug retailers: even Rite Aid’s stock price responded with a nice up-tick.

The retail pharmacy universe just got a little bit smaller.

Despite Drug Fair’s turnaround efforts in recent years, the regional player has fallen victim to the current economic crunch, filing for bankruptcy protection and agreeing to sell the majority of its assets to Walgreens.