, Columnist
Rite Aid: Discount, Aisle 1
Would-be acquirer Walgreens has less to gain and has already lost about $10 billion of shareholder value.
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Shares of Rite Aid Corp. took a bath Monday morning after Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. slashed its takeover offer by more than $2 billion as part of an effort to obtain regulatory clearance for their long-drawn-out merger.
The new terms -- $6.50 to $7 a share, rather than the original $9 -- may sound like a raw deal for Rite Aid's shareholders. However, the $6.1 billion company's financials have also worsened in the year and three months since it agreed to sell itself to Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens.