PRIVATE EQUITY OWNED
Walgreens
Includes Walgreens Boots Alliance, WBA
pharmacy · Deerfield, IL
- PE Firm
- Sycamore Partners →
- Year Acquired
- 2025
Sycamore split Walgreens into five sellable pieces and installed the CEO who oversaw a third of Staples US stores closing.
What They Did
- Sycamore Partners announced the buyout of Walgreens Boots Alliance on March 6, 2025 and closed on August 28, 2025, paying $11.45/share with an equity value of ~$10B; the total deal, including assumed debt, capital leases, opioid-settlement obligations, and contingent payments, was valued at up to $23.7B
- About 71% of the deal was financed with borrowed money, piled onto a company whose stock had already fallen ~80% from its 2015 peak on opioid-litigation settlements, shrinking pharmacy payments, and a shrinking store base
- Within weeks of closing, Sycamore carved Walgreens into five standalone entities — Walgreens US retail, Boots Group, Shields Health Solutions, CareCentrix, and VillageMD — each structured to be sold off independently
- Sycamore installed Mike Motz as CEO the day the deal closed; Motz ran Staples US Retail under Sycamore from 2019–2025, a period that overlapped with the closure of roughly one-third of Staples' US locations
Since the Acquisition
- Walgreens had already shuttered 500+ stores by early 2026 toward a 1,200-location closure plan announced October 2024, with the pace accelerating after the acquisition
- Walgreens eliminated six paid holidays for hourly store workers — Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day — a benefit cut that surfaced in October 2025 and took effect that November, about two months after the deal closed
- Walgreens cut at least 628 corporate and logistics jobs in February 2026: 469 at its Deerfield, Illinois headquarters and 159 tied to closing its Houston distribution center, with those workers out by June 1, 2026
- Walgreens is closing stores in the communities with the fewest alternatives: roughly 50 million Americans (1 in 7) already live in pharmacy deserts, and its closures concentrate in rural and low-income areas
Sources
- Walgreens Boots Alliance 8-K: Definitive Agreement with Sycamore Partners — SEC EDGAR(2025-03-06)
- Walgreen Co. To Operate as Private Standalone Company Following Acquisition By Sycamore Partners — Walgreens Corporate(2025-08-28)
- Sycamore Partners Completes Acquisition of Walgreens, Splits Into Five Companies — Healthcare Dive(2025-08-28)
- Sycamore acquires Walgreens, raises alarms over debt and bankruptcy risk — PESP(2025-08-28)
- Walgreens names retail veteran Mike Motz as CEO after Sycamore takes chain private — CNBC(2025-08-28)
- Walgreens eliminates 6 paid holidays for hourly workers after private equity buyout — CBS News Chicago(2025-11-12)
- Walgreens Accelerates Restructuring as Sycamore Partners Intensifies Store Closures and Corporate Layoffs — FinancialContent(2026-02-23)
- Sycamore Partners to take Walgreens private — Reuters(2024-12-10)