Walgreens Boots Alliance has named Stefano Pessina CEO, making permanent a role the veteran executive has filled since he helped create a drugstore behemoth that may not be done growing.
The 73-year-old Monaco resident led European health and beauty retailer Alliance Boots as executive chairman before engineering a combination with Walgreen Co., which runs the largest drugstore chain in the United States.
That tie-up created one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical buyers at a time when other key players in the health care industry also are expanding through multi-billion dollar deals. Walgreens’ chief U.S. rival, CVS Health Corp., announced a partnership with the retailer Target last month. Another drugstore chain, Rite Aid Corp., and the health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. both are expanding their pharmacy benefits management businesses, and several insurers and drugmakers have announced plans to combine
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. now runs more than 13,200 stores and 350 distribution centers in 11 countries. That size gives the company added negotiating muscle over drug prices and other health care products, as the drugstore industry broadens its reach into providing care. Pessina said Thursday, after the company announced his appointment, that Walgreens is eager to get bigger internationally or in a U.S. market that is undergoing “a substantial wave of consolidation.
“I have said clearly that we want to be part of this at the right time with the right partner,” he told analysts during a conference call to discuss fiscal third quarter earnings.