Walgreens Boots Alliance
Retail Pharmacy & HealthcareFounded 1901- Updated July 2025
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: July 2025
CorpDigest
Walgreens Boots Alliance
Company History
Founded 1901 in Deerfield, Illinois
Last reviewed: 2025-07-15 · By Swet Parvadiya
Charles R. Walgreen Sr. Opened a single drugstore on the South Side of Chicago in 1901, purchased from a previous employer. The store sold pharmaceuticals, sundries, and eventually food — Walgreen is credited with popularizing the malted milk shake by adding ice cream to chocolate malt, reportedly an accident in 1922 that became a deliberate menu item.
Expansion accelerated through the 1920s. By 1929, Walgreens operated 525 stores, a growth rate that required the company to go public in 1927 to fund the real estate and inventory. The soda fountain became the traffic driver — a reason to visit a drugstore other than illness — and the format scaled nationally during an era when chain retail was still novel.
The Boots merger came much later. Alliance Boots GmbH, the British pharmacy chain with roots dating to 1849, joined Walgreens in 2014 in a two-stage transaction that created Walgreens Boots Alliance as a combined entity. The merger added European distribution, the Boots retail brand, and significant pharmaceutical wholesale operations — none of which fit neatly with American drugstore operations.
The VillageMD acquisition of a majority stake in 2021 represented a separate strategic pivot: co-locating primary care physicians inside Walgreens stores to convert pharmacy traffic into healthcare visits. The concept tested well in pilot markets. At scale, it ran into physician staffing costs, insurance billing complexity, and a patient population that hadn't yet changed its habits as quickly as the model assumed.
Charles R. Walgreen Sr. Is one of the most consequential figures in the history of American retail. A self-made entrepreneur who parlayed a borrowed $2,000 into one of the most recognized retail brands in American history, Walgreen combined pharmaceutical professionalism with retail showmanship in a way that had no direct precedent in the industry. He was an innovator in retail standardization, understanding decades before modern retail theory codified the concept that consumers valued consistency and predictability above novelty. His emphasis on the soda fountain as a traffic driver — ultimately contributing to the popularization of the malted milk shake — demonstrated his instinct for the experiential dimension of retail that mere merchandise display could not provide. He served as the company's chief executive until his death in 1939, having grown the company from a single Chicago storefront to a 500-plus location national chain.
Charles R. Walgreen Sr. Opens his first drugstore at 4134 South Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, financed with $2,000 borrowed from his former employer. The store features a soda fountain that becomes central to its community appeal.
Walgreens operates nine stores in Chicago, establishing the management systems and centralized purchasing infrastructure that will support rapid expansion in the following decade.
The company completes its initial public offering, listing shares on the New York Stock Exchange and providing capital for continued national expansion. At the time of the IPO, Walgreens operates more than 100 stores.
By 1929, Walgreens has expanded to more than 525 locations across 87 cities, making it one of the fastest-growing retail chains in American history during the 1920s expansion era.
Walgreens opens its 1,000th store, reflecting decades of disciplined organic growth and establishing the company as the largest pharmacy chain in the United States by store count at the time.
The company reaches 6,000 U.S. Pharmacy locations, cementing its position as the country's second-largest pharmacy chain and one of the most geographically accessible retail healthcare networks in the world.
Walgreens acquires a 45 percent stake in Alliance Boots GmbH, a leading European pharmacy and pharmaceutical wholesale company, for approximately 6.7 billion dollars, beginning the multinational transformation of the company.
Walgreens completes the full acquisition of Alliance Boots, forming Walgreens Boots Alliance and creating one of the largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retail and pharmaceutical wholesale companies in the world with operations across more than a dozen countries.
After a blocked attempt to acquire all of Rite Aid Corporation, WBA completes the acquisition of 1,932 Rite Aid stores and three distribution centers for approximately 4.375 billion dollars, significantly expanding its U.S. Pharmacy footprint.
WBA announces a 5.2 billion dollar investment to bring VillageMD primary care clinics to more than 600 Walgreens locations by 2025, representing the most ambitious healthcare services transformation effort in the company's history.
WBA recognizes multi-billion dollar goodwill impairment charges related to VillageMD, cuts its quarterly dividend, and appoints Tim Wentworth as CEO to lead a fundamental strategic reset focused on core pharmacy operations.
WBA announces plans to close approximately 1,200 U.S. Stores over a three-year period as part of a comprehensive restructuring program. The company's stock falls more than 70 percent during calendar year 2024, and its credit rating is cut to non-investment grade by major ratings agencies.
The acquisition of Alliance Boots was the most transformative strategic transaction in Walgreens' history, converting a domestic U.S. Pharmacy chain into a global healthcare enterprise with operations across Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Walgreens management sought to create a business with sufficient scale to negotiate more favorable pharmaceutical procurement terms globally and to participate in the higher-margin European pharmacy and wholesale distribution markets. The transaction also positioned WBA as the first truly global pharmacy-led health and beauty company, a distinction that management hoped would create strategic value through geographic diversification and brand portfolio depth.
After a proposed acquisition of all of Rite Aid Corporation was blocked by antitrust regulators, WBA negotiated a revised transaction to acquire approximately 1,932 Rite Aid store locations and three distribution centers. The store acquisition was intended to fill geographic gaps in the Walgreens U.S. Network and to achieve the scale economies available from operating a larger total store count across the same overhead infrastructure. The Rite Aid stores were concentrated in the Northeast and Southeast, markets where Walgreens had historically been underrepresented relative to CVS.
WBA announced a commitment to invest approximately 5.2 billion dollars in VillageMD, a primary care clinic operator, over five years to co-locate VillageMD primary care practices inside Walgreens pharmacy locations. The strategy was designed to transform the Walgreens network from a prescription dispensing point into a comprehensive healthcare destination, capitalizing on the patient trust and visit frequency generated by the pharmacy relationship to drive primary care utilization. Management believed that the combination of pharmacy access and primary care services under one roof would attract health plan contracts and generate clinical revenue independent of PBM reimbursement dynamics.
WBA acquired the majority of the Alliance Healthcare pharmaceutical wholesale distribution business from AmerisourceBergen in 2021, deepening its European pharmaceutical distribution footprint and increasing its participation in the wholesale logistics business that serves pharmacies, hospitals, and healthcare providers across Europe. The acquisition was intended to strengthen WBA's position as a pharmaceutical supply chain partner and to capture more of the economic value created along the pharmaceutical distribution chain from manufacturer to patient.
Shields Health Solutions is a specialty pharmacy services company that partners with health systems to operate specialty pharmacy programs within hospital and health system settings, capturing prescription volume that would otherwise be filled at external specialty pharmacies. WBA acquired a majority stake in Shields as part of its broader healthcare services expansion strategy, seeking to participate in the high-margin specialty pharmacy segment while simultaneously building a health system partnership channel that could generate referral volume for Walgreens specialty pharmacy locations.
Walgreens was founded in 1901 on the South Side of Chicago by Charles Rudolph Walgreen Sr., a Galesburg, Illinois pharmacist who had purchased the small drugstore at 4134 South Cottage Grove Avenue from his employer Isaac W. Blood. Walgreen had served as a pharmacy clerk for a decade and was determined to expand beyond the staid 19th-century pharmacy model. He installed soda fountains, telephones for prescription orders, and a uniform pricing policy that distinguished his store from competitors that bargained with every customer. By 1916 the chain had grown to nine Chicago stores and was incorporated as Walgreen Co. The signature double-rich chocolate malted milkshake was invented at the Walgreens at 825 North Cottage Grove in 1922, becoming a national draw for the soda fountains that anchored every store. The company expanded steadily through the Prohibition era, when pharmacies could legally dispense whiskey by prescription, fueling profitable medicinal alcohol sales. Charles Sr. served as president until 1939, by which point Walgreens operated nearly 500 stores nationally. The company was passed down through the Walgreen family for decades, with descendants leading it until the 1990s.
Walgreens went public in 1927, just 26 years after its founding, when Walgreen Co. listed its shares on the Chicago Stock Exchange and shortly thereafter on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker WAG. The IPO occurred at a time when the company operated 110 stores, almost all of them in the Midwest, and had revenues of approximately $27 million. The public listing provided the capital required to expand soda fountains and lunch counters during the late 1920s and helped Walgreens survive the Great Depression with sufficient liquidity to acquire weaker independent pharmacies. The Walgreen family retained a substantial ownership stake for decades, and Charles R. Walgreen Sr. served as both chairman and president until 1939. The company continued to trade as Walgreen Co. through 2014, when it merged with Alliance Boots in a multi-stage transaction creating Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., at which point the ticker changed to WBA and the listing moved to the Nasdaq Stock Market under a Delaware-incorporated holding company. Walgreens had been listed continuously for more than 85 years prior to the WBA reorganization.
Walgreens completed its merger with Switzerland-based Alliance Boots in two stages between 2012 and 2014, ultimately creating Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. on 31 December 2014. The first stage, announced on 19 June 2012, saw Walgreens pay $4.0 billion in cash and 83.4 million shares (worth approximately $2.7 billion) for a 45% stake in Alliance Boots, with the option to acquire the remaining 55% within three years. The second stage closed on 31 December 2014, with Walgreens paying approximately $5.3 billion in cash and 144.3 million shares (worth roughly $9.6 billion) for the remaining 55%, valuing Alliance Boots overall at around $15.3 billion. The combined entity was renamed Walgreens Boots Alliance and reincorporated in Delaware with its headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois. The strategic rationale was global scale in pharmaceutical purchasing, an international retail pharmacy footprint encompassing the UK's Boots, German Celesio (acquired 2014 by Alliance Boots-affiliated entities), and Mexican distribution, and a counter to the rising pressure on US pharmacy benefit managers. Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina, who had built Alliance Boots through serial European pharmacy consolidation since the 1990s, became executive vice chairman and later acting CEO from 2015 to 2021.
Walgreens grew to be the largest US drugstore chain by store count through a sustained organic expansion campaign that emphasized standalone corner-lot stores from the early 1990s onward, combined with selective acquisitions. The company crossed 1,000 stores in 1984, 3,000 stores in 2000, and 7,000 stores by 2010, eventually peaking at around 9,000 US stores in the mid-2010s. The growth strategy under chairman and CEO Charles R. Walgreen III (1971–1998) and his successor Dave Bernauer (1998–2006) emphasized building company-operated, freestanding 14,500-square-foot stores at high-traffic corners with drive-through pharmacies, rather than the strip-mall or in-supermarket format favored by competitors. CEO Greg Wasson (2009–2014) added acquisitions, including the 2010 purchase of Duane Reade (the dominant New York City drugstore chain) for $1.075 billion, the 2012 purchase of USA Drug parent Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings for approximately $438 million, and the 2017 purchase of 1,932 Rite Aid stores for $4.375 billion. By 2024 the network had been deliberately shrunk to approximately 8,500 stores in the United States and is being further reduced under CEO Tim Wentworth's footprint optimization program.
Walgreens Boots Alliance announced on 27 June 2024 that it would accelerate the closure of approximately 1,200 US Walgreens stores over the following three years, on top of an existing program to shutter underperforming locations. The decision was disclosed by CEO Tim Wentworth on the fiscal Q3 2024 earnings call as part of a broader "footprint optimization" program intended to address what management described as "significantly increased and accelerated levels of consumer constraint and an evolving pharmacy industry model." Approximately 300 of the closures were already underway, with 900 additional locations identified for closure across fiscal years 2025–2027. The closure list disproportionately affects urban underserved communities where Walgreens had previously committed to maintaining service after rival closures, raising concerns from public health officials and politicians in Illinois, California, and Massachusetts. The 1,200 stores being closed represent roughly 14% of the US Walgreens footprint and follow continuous shrinkage from a 2018 peak of roughly 9,560 US stores. Combined with the Boots UK footprint reduction announced in 2023 and the divestment of US Healthcare assets, the 2024 program signaled a strategic retreat from the omnichannel expansion strategy that had defined the company since the 2014 merger.