USA Drug

Last updated
USA Drug
Type Private
Founded1984
Defunct2012
Fateacquired by Walgreens; shut down September 15, 2012
Headquarters Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Products Retail-Pharmacy
Website www.usadrug.com

USA Drug was a convenience store and pharmacy chain in the United States that operated more than 160 stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. It was founded in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1986. Its headquarters are still located in Pine Bluff with additional offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Memphis, Tennessee. Its parent company, Walgreens, operates Super D Drug Stores and Ikes Deep Discount Drug, both acquired in October 1997, [1] and May's Drug, Med-X Drug, Drug Warehouse, and Drug Mart, all acquired in July 2004, [2] as "Part of the USA Drug Family". Wal-Mart and CVS/Pharmacy are two of its primary competitors. The company's slogan is "America's Low Price Drug Store".

Steve LaFrance stepped down as CEO on October 20, 2006 and named Joe Courtright CEO of the company. Courtright was named president of the company in September and was vice president of pharmacy for Region 2 previous to that. LaFrance maintained a presence with the company as chairman.

On July 5, 2012, Walgreens announced the acquisition of USA Drug. [3] In September 2012, Walgreens announced that they will be closing 76 USA Drug affiliated stores by November. [4] Walgreens took ownership on September 15, 2012.

Steve Lee LaFrance SR. was born in 1941 in New Orleans and earned a bachelor of science in pharmacy degree at Northeast Louisiana State College of Monroe. After graduation, LaFrance took a pharmacist position at the Medic Pharmacy in Shreveport. Four years later, LaFrance worked 12 hours, six days a week, in Pine Bluff. He built Gibson’s pharmacy into a thriving business. Later he got the opportunity to buy another pharmacy just down the street but could not come up with the funds. After being turned down by several banks for loans, he finally secured the five thousand he needed to start the business. He expanded the stores to where by 2012 he had more than 150 stores.

LaFrance also started SAJ Distributors in the 1970s. SAJ allowed him to buy directly from vendors so he could sell at a better margin. SAJ grew to be the provider of more than 22,000 health, beauty and general merchandise products to over 1000 grocery, drug and discount stores.

Exterior view of a typical USA Drug store located in Hot Springs, Arkansas USAstore.jpg
Exterior view of a typical USA Drug store located in Hot Springs, Arkansas

Upon making 26 dollars on opening day in 1968 at the first USA Drug in Pine Bluff, that profit went a lot further than LaFrance had ever dreamed possible. From the modest upbringing and start, LaFrance built the USA Drug chain into the largest privately owned pharmacy chain in the United States. USA Drug covered nine different states, with 150 different locations in 825 million dollars in annual sales, and supported more than 3500 employees and their families. In 2012, shortly before LaFrance passed, Walgreens acquired USA Drug for more than 550 million dollars, all from a 26 dollar opening day.

Related Research Articles

Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation is a Canadian retail pharmacy chain based in Toronto, Ontario. It has more than 1,300 stores operating under the name Shoppers Drug Mart in nine provinces and two territories, and as Pharmaprix in Quebec.

CVS Pharmacy U.S. pharmacy chain

CVS Pharmacy is an American retail corporation. Owned by CVS Health, it is headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was also known as, and originally named, the Consumer Value Store and was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1963. The chain was owned by its original holding company Melville Corporation from its inception until its current parent company was spun off into its own company in 1996. CVS Pharmacy is currently the largest pharmacy chain in the United States by number of locations and total prescription revenue. Its parent company ranks as the fifth largest U.S. corporation by FY2020 revenues in the Fortune 500. The parent company of CVS Pharmacy's leading competitor (Walgreens) ranked 19th for the same time period.

Walgreens American pharmacy and convenience store chain

Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates as the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, and photo services. As of August 31, 2019, the company operated 9,277 stores in the United States. It was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1901. The Walgreens headquarters office is in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois.

Schnucks is a supermarket chain. Based in the St. Louis area, the company was founded in 1939 with the opening of a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) store in north St. Louis and currently operates over 100 stores in four states throughout the Midwest. Schnucks also ran stores under the Logli Supermarkets and Hilander Foods banners. Schnucks is one of the largest privately-held supermarket chains in the United States and dominates the St. Louis metro grocery market.

Eckerd Corporation

Eckerd Corporation was an American drug store chain that was headquartered in Largo, Florida, and toward the end of its life, in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Rite Aid Drugstore chain

Rite Aid Corporation is an American drugstore chain based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania by Alex Grass under the name Thrift D Discount Center. The company ranked No. 150 in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. It is headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. Rite Aid is the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast and the third largest in the U.S.

Alliance Boots

Alliance Boots GmbH was a multinational pharmacy-led health and beauty group with corporate headquarters in Bern, Switzerland and operational headquarters in Nottingham and Weybridge, United Kingdom.

Phar-Mor was a United States chain of discount drug stores, based in Youngstown, Ohio, and founded by Michael "Mickey" Monus and David Shapira in 1982. Some of its stores used the names Pharmhouse and Rx Place. Low prices were advertised to bring in a large volume of sales with the slogans "Phar-Mor power buying gives you Phar-Mor buying power" and "Phar-Mor For Less." Another common slogan in their TV commercials was "Power buying saves: Save at Phar-Mor."

Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. was a pharmacy holding company that owned the Thrifty Drugs and PayLess Drug Stores chains in the western United States. The combined company was formed in April 1994 when Los Angeles-based TCH Corporation, the parent company of Thrifty Corporation and Thrifty Drug Stores, Inc., acquired the Kmart subsidiary PayLess Drug Stores Northwest, Inc. At the time of the merger, TCH Corporation was renamed Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. and Thrifty operated 495 stores, PayLess operated 543 stores.

Happy Harrys

Happy Harry's was an American drugstore chain that was merged into Walgreens starting in 2006. Happy Harry's operated 76 locations in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. It was founded in 1962 by entrepreneur Harry Levin.

Freds American retail store chain

Fred's Inc. was a retail store chain headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, operating in 15 states in the southeastern United States. As of June, 2019 Fred's operated 396 locations, of which 155 are pharmacies, and the remainder discount general merchandise stores. In July of 2019 Fred's announced 129 pending store closures, following which it would have 80 retail stores and 166 pharmacies remaining. This followed earlier store closing announcements in April and June of 2019.

CVS Health is an American healthcare company that owns CVS Pharmacy, a retail pharmacy chain; CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefits manager; and Aetna, a health insurance provider, among many other brands. The company's headquarters is in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It is the largest U.S.-only corporation in the world, and also the largest to only serve one country.

Navarro Discount Pharmacies, Inc., frequently referred to as Navarro is a pharmacy chain, photo service, and pharmacy benefit manager in the United States. The company was acquired by CVS Health in September, 2014 and is operated as a separate brand and business of CVS, headquartered in Miami, Florida. The company mainly operates in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties and currently has 28 stores. Navarro Discount Pharmacies has a 17% market share in South Florida, ahead of Walgreens and CVS/pharmacy. The company has more than 2,000 employees and annual sales of more than $350 million. Navarro leads the industry in terms of sales per store, sales per square foot, and prescriptions filled per store.

Super-Pharm

Super-Pharm is an Israeli multinational pharmacy chain. It is also operates in Poland and in China. Super-Pharm was founded by Murray Koffler with his two oldest children, Leon and Theo. The pharmacy uses a similar logo, and has private-label brands, as Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada.

Drug Fair

Drug Fair was a chain of drugstores based in New Jersey.

Times Supermarkets

"Times Supermarkets" is an American supermarket chain, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Times operates 24 stores throughout the state of Hawaii, 17 using the "Times" banner, five operating under the Big Save brand on Kauai, one specialty food/liquor store under the Fujioka’s Wine Times name, and one location operating as "Shima's Supermarket" in Waimanalo, Hawaii. "A Supermarket With Everyday Low Prices" is their current slogan. It is also referred to by its customers as Times, rather than the full name.

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. is an holding company headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois that owns the retail pharmacy chains Walgreens and Boots, as well as several pharmaceutical manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution companies. The company was formed on December 31, 2014, after Walgreens purchased the 55% stake in Alliance Boots that it did not already own. The total price of the acquisition was $4.9 billion in cash and 144.3 million common shares with fair value of $10.7 billion. Walgreens had previously purchased 45% of the company for $4.0 billion and 83.4 million common shares in August 2012 with an option to purchase the remaining shares within three years. Walgreens became a subsidiary of the newly created company after the transactions were completed. As of 2020, Walgreens Boots Alliance is ranked #19 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

References

  1. ↑ Kulpa, Jennifer (1999). "Super D acquired". findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 2006-07-21. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  2. ↑ Alexander, Antoinette (2004). "May's Drug Acquired". findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 2007-03-13. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  3. ↑ "Walgreen, on a Buying Binge, Announces Another Deal". Archived from the original on 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
  4. ↑ "Walgreens closing 76 USA Drug-affiliated stores including several in Memphis area". Bizjournals. September 11, 2012. Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.