Revco

Revco D.S. Inc. will blitz the Baltimore area with eight new stores in the next several months, creating about 100 jobs and setting the stage for a pharmaceutical feud with Rite-Aid, Giant and others.The nation's second-largest drug store chain intends to open two stores in early July at 5501 Park Heights Ave. and 900 Edmondson Ave., both in the city, the company announced yesterday.In August, two stores will open at 5407 Harford Road in the city and at Liberty and Rolling roads in western Baltimore County.

CVS/pharmacy has completed its conversion of 40 Revco drugstores in the Baltimore region, making CVS the area's second-largest pharmacy retailer.The conversion is part of the Rhode Island retailer's national plan to convert 2,600 Revco stores to the CVS name by the end of the year. CVS bought Revco D. S. Inc. in May.Renovated stores have wider aisles, brighter lights, wall-to-wall carpeting and redesigned layouts.The purchase of the former Revcos boosted CVS from fourth place to second in the Baltimore area, behind Rite Aid Corp.

Rite Aid Corp., in a revised proposal, yesterday offered about $675 million to buy Revco D.S. Inc., a privately owned drugstore chain based in Ohio, and bring it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.Rite Aid, a drugstore chain based in Shiremanstown, Pa., near Harrisburg, and five Revco bondholders jointly submitted the plan. It calls for giving Revco creditors $542 million in cash and distributing about $133 million worth of Rite Aid common stock to creditors. In addition, Rite Aid would assume about $80 million of Revco liabilities.

I know guys who used to rush to birthday parties at Little Italy restaurants, discovering at the last minute that they forgot to buy a card for their girlfriends or wives or mothers. They'll be bummed to hear that Kelly & Poggi, the soda fountain and card shop at Fawn and Exeter, across from Mugs' Lunch and Pepino's Tavern, has closed.Ray Alcaraz, the neighborhood kid who bought the old pharmacy two years ago and who tried to revive it as a corner convenience store with fountain service, couldn't make it work, even with his mother, Mary Ann's, help behind the counter.

TWINSBURG, Ohio -- Revco D.S. Inc. agreed to buy Hook-SupeRx for $13.75 a share, or about $600 million, which will make it the country's second-largest retail drugstore chain.The price is 50 percent more than where Hook-SupeRx shares closed at the end of last week, and news of the acquisition pushed up the share price almost 40 percent in heavy trading yesterday.Revco's planned purchase of Hook-SupeRx is the latest consolidation among retail drug chains. Just last week, Kmart Corp. completed the sale of its PayLess Drug Store chain to TCH Corp.

CVS/pharmacy has completed its conversion of 40 Revco drugstores in the Baltimore region, making CVS the area's second-largest pharmacy retailer.The conversion is part of the Rhode Island retailer's national plan to convert 2,600 Revco stores to the CVS name by the end of the year. CVS bought Revco D. S. Inc. in May.Renovated stores have wider aisles, brighter lights, wall-to-wall carpeting and redesigned layouts.The purchase of the former Revcos boosted CVS from fourth place to second in the Baltimore area, behind Rite Aid Corp.

Jack Eckerd Corp., the Florida-based drugstore company that had seemed on the brink of taking over the bankrupt Revco D.S. Inc. chain, retreated today in the face of a determined defense by Revco management.Eckerd said it would "postpone indefinitely consideration of its plan of reorganization for Revco" and let a management-supported plan go forward for confirmation by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Akron, Ohio. In return, Twinsburg, Ohio-based Revco agreed to pay Eckerd $7.5 million to cover expenses it incurred in its takeover bid.Stewart Turley, chairman of Eckerd, cited "significant additional costs" and delays that would have resulted if his company kept up the fight.

In another drugstore chain consolidation, CVS Corp. said yesterday it will acquire Revco DS Inc. for $3.7 billion in stock and assumed debt to form one of the nation's largest drugstore chains with $13 billion in annual revenues.The combined company will be called CVS and will be based in Woonsocket, R.I., where CVS is currently based. The newcompany will have more stores than any chain in the country -- approximately 4,000 in 24 states and Washington -- and be second only to Walgreen Co. of Illinois in annual revenues.

Jack Eckerd Corp., an aggressive Florida-based drugstore chain, won the bidding contest for the long-bankrupt Revco drugstore chain yesterday, just hours after Rite Aid Corp. walked away.Eckerd's winning bid will add 33 stores to the one it now operates in Maryland. The privately held company operates 1,678 stores in 13 states from Oklahoma and Texas to New Jersey and Delaware.With the acquisition of Revco, with 1,141 stores, Eckerd will become the biggest drugstore chain in the country.Eckerd, based in Clearwater, was considered the dark horse in the race after it finished last in the first round of voting by Revco creditors, which ended last Friday.

A man accused of making a virtual career of robbing Revco pharmacies is behind bars, accused by police of holding up a dozen of the drugstores in the area by threatening employees with a handgun.The man's alleged propensity for targeting the chain is unexplained, but investigators say it is not unusual for robbers to continue doing what works best."We see this time and time again," said Lt. Larry Leeson, head of the Baltimore police robbery unit. "When they have success with places, they will keep on going with that place until they get caught."

The impact of a $2.8 billion deal in which CVS Corp. of Rhode Island bought Revco D. S. Inc. of Ohio is being felt in Taneytown.The city's only pharmacy, a Revco in the Taneytown Shopping Center at 520 E. Baltimore St., is scheduled to close, leaving an anchor position vacant and smaller merchants in the shopping center worried.Meanwhile, CVS has submitted a site plan for a new drugstore across East Baltimore Street, on 1.06 acres adjoining a 4.5-acre tract where a Food Lion supermarket is under construction.

A man accused of making a virtual career of robbing Revco pharmacies is behind bars, accused by police of holding up a dozen of the drugstores in the area by threatening employees with a handgun.The man's alleged propensity for targeting the chain is unexplained, but investigators say it is not unusual for robbers to continue doing what works best."We see this time and time again," said Lt. Larry Leeson, head of the Baltimore police robbery unit. "When they have success with places, they will keep on going with that place until they get caught."

County police arrested a Pasadena woman Tuesday on charges of more than doubling the number of painkillers called for in a prescription.Belinda Marie Glock, 23, of the 7600 block of Cedar Drive was charged with altering a prescription and attempting to obtain drugs by fraud.Police said she tried to have falsified prescriptions for Percocet, a powerful painkiller, filled at two Revco pharmacies.In the first incident, about 1: 30 p.m. Tuesday, a woman handed Valerie Coons, a pharmacist at the Revco in the 8500 block of Fort Smallwood Road, a prescription that had been changed from 18 to 48 Percocet tablets.

In another drugstore chain consolidation, CVS Corp. said yesterday it will acquire Revco DS Inc. for $3.7 billion in stock and assumed debt to form one of the nation's largest drugstore chains with $13 billion in annual revenues.The combined company will be called CVS and will be based in Woonsocket, R.I., where CVS is currently based. The newcompany will have more stores than any chain in the country -- approximately 4,000 in 24 states and Washington -- and be second only to Walgreen Co. of Illinois in annual revenues.

Buckling under intense opposition, Rite Aid Corp. yesterday abandoned its $1.8 billion bid to buy Revco D.S. Inc., ending months of fractious negotiations with federal regulators over the drugstore industry's largest merger.But in a parting shot, Martin Grass, Rite Aid's chairman and chief executive officer, accused the Federal Trade Commission of playing politics and vowed to return and fight another day."They were not negotiating in good faith," Mr. Grass said, asserting that the FTC was never interested in reviewing the facts of the merger impartially and that federal regulators thwarted the chain at every turn to settle the matter.

In a rare legal challenge, federal regulators voted unanimously yesterday to block Rite Aid Corp.'s $1.8 billion acquisition of Revco D.S. Inc., jeopardizing the largest proposed merger in the drugstore industry.But in a twist that developed just hours later, Rite Aid extended the deadline for negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission until Wednesday in the hopes of reaching a more amicable settlement.In response, the FTC said it would honor the extended waiting period, but still intended to seek a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court unless Rite Aid modifies the merger.

WASHINGTON -- Rite Aid Corp.'s $1.8 billion bid to buy Revco D. S. Inc. in history's biggest drugstore merger has hit a rough stretch of road at the Federal Trade Commission.Rite Aid yesterday extended its Revco tender offer for the fourth time and said the FTC's continuing antitrust review caused the delay. The agency is looking at whether a merger that joins more than 4,800 drugstores would hurt competition and raise prices.The FTC this week took the unusual step of naming trustees to sell several Rite Aid and Revco drugstores, after the companies had trouble disposing of pharmacies that the FTC ordered them to sell because of antitrust concerns about earlier mergers.

WASHINGTON -- Rite Aid Corp.'s $1.8 billion bid to buy Revco D. S. Inc. in history's biggest drugstore merger has hit a rough stretch of road at the Federal Trade Commission.Rite Aid yesterday extended its Revco tender offer for the fourth time and said the FTC's continuing antitrust review caused the delay. The agency is looking at whether a merger that joins more than 4,800 drugstores would hurt competition and raise prices.The FTC this week took the unusual step of naming trustees to sell several Rite Aid and Revco drugstores, after the companies had trouble disposing of pharmacies that the FTC ordered them to sell because of antitrust concerns about earlier mergers.

Changes in the health care industry and a growing consolidation movement sowed the seeds of Rite Aid Corp.'s $1.8 billion acquisition of Revco D.S. Inc., a deal announced late Wednesday that will create the nation's largest drugstore chain, analysts say.The merger will make Rite Aid -- already the No. 1 chain in the number of stores and fourth in revenue -- an even greater colossus, with more than $11 billion in annual sales and more than 4,500 stores in...