Rite Aid has announced it will be closing all of its stores in Michigan and Ohio, following a total of over 856 store closures since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2023.
“Rite Aid regularly assesses its retail footprint to ensure we are operating efficiently while meeting the needs of our customers, communities, associates, and overall business,” said Catherine Carter, Rite Aid’s manager of public relations and external communications.
“While we have had to make difficult business decisions over the past several months to improve our business and optimize our retail footprint, we are committed to becoming financially and operationally healthy.”
In September 2023, Rite Aid said it was “negotiating terms” of a bankruptcy plan to permanently close a significant number of its more than 2,100 drugstores.
The pharmacy apparently talked about closing as many as 500 stores in bankruptcy, and either sell or let creditors take over its remaining operations.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the company planned to file for bankruptcy protection as it faces more than $3.3 billion in debt and over a thousand federal lawsuits over its role in the opioid epidemic.
