Walgreens's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at Walgreens — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Adjacency Trap · Adjacency Expansion
Walgreens Spent $14 Billion Becoming a Doctor. It Ended Up Going Private.
Walgreens poured $6.2 billion into VillageMD and backstopped an $8.9 billion clinic deal before the model ever proved it could make money. A $12.4 billion impairment and a $10 billion take-private later, the adjacency was the accelerant.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Adjacency Expansion
Walgreens Spent $12 Billion Buying Its Way Into Healthcare. It Bought a Trap.
Walgreens poured nearly $12B into VillageMD primary care in five escalating steps. Each one deepened the bet before the last one paid off—until a $12.369B goodwill write-down in 2024 proved the adjacency was right and the financing was fatal.
8 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
Walgreens Lost to CVS in a Boardroom, Not a Store Aisle
Walgreens kept more foot traffic than CVS right up to the end - 50% of the two chains' visits. It still got taken private in a roughly $10 billion fire sale. The reason wasn't worse stores. It was one capital-allocation bet that went 13x bigger at CVS.
8 min