In the American pantheon, there’s baseball, apple pie, and a Walgreens drugstore on nearly every other corner. Yet an investor group wants to persuade the Midwestern stalwart to relocate to Europe as a way to reduce its corporate tax burden.
Three hedge funds and a Goldman Sachs investment fund want the 113-year-old pharmacy chain, based in suburban Chicago, to consider a tax “inversion” and move to Europe, as the Financial Times reported today, citing unnamed sources. Walgreen Chief Executive Greg Wasson and the company’s chief financial officer met in Paris last week with a hedge fund group that wants the company to leave Illinois for what would most likely be Switzerland, which has lower tax rates.
