Walgreens was scheduled in two years to celebrate its 100th year as a publicly traded company. Now the storied pharmacist and retailer won’t honor that milestone, because it no longer will be publicly owned.
Months after reports that the long-trusted, Deerfield-based retail giant was considering selling to a private equity firm, the $10 billion deal with New York-based Sycamore Partners was unveiled late Thursday.
The highly complex transaction involving multiple banks and many layers of financing marks anything but success for Walgreens management and Walgreens Chairman Stefano Pessina, the Italian magnate who is largely responsible for the sprawling mess this company has become. It’s a low-premium waving of the white flag aimed at extricating shareholders from an investment that management clearly believes has no significant upside in any kind of reasonable time frame…