Rite Aid Not Ruling Out More Store Closures As Losses Mount

Rite Aid executives aren’t ruling out more store closures as the company sustains more financial losses while they’re working their turnaround plan.

Rite Aid earlier this week confirmed the closure of another 25 stores in its fiscal first quarter that ended June 3. The disclosure was made during a call to discuss quarterly earnings and an updated financial outlook that projects wider losses for fiscal 2024.

The newly confirmed closures are on top of the 145 unprofitable stores that Rite Aid announced in 2021 that closed from late 2021 throughout last year.

Rite Aid, which has 2,300 stores across 17 states, said Thursday that fiscal 2024 losses would be worse than a forecast unveiled earlier this year with a net loss “expected to be between approximately $650 million and $680 million.”

“We’re always looking at store performance, this is something we do on an ongoing basis,” Rite Aid chief financial officer and executive vice president Matthew Schroeder told analysts on Thursday’s call to discuss fiscal first quarter earnings. “So I would characterize this less as a wholesale program and more as we are constantly looking at the store base.”

To be sure, drugstore chains, including Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health, are constantly evaluating the need for certain brick and mortar store locations given Americans changing retail shopping habits as well to more healthcare services becoming virtual.

“We’re constantly looking at performance of stores, particularly ones that don’t have much lease life left on the lease and determining whether we’ve got an opportunity to continue to maximize the profitability and the efficiency of the fleet,” Rite Aid’s Schroeder said. “I would expect us to continue to do that. I don’t have a number of store closures to give you, but it’s certainly something we’re going to continue to look at as we think about just how do we drive as much profitability as we can while still maintaining the presence in communities and providing access to our customers and communities.”