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Small Tennessee drugstore chain may become national player

FILE - This Feb. 19, 2013, file photo shows pills of the painkiller hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. Drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on these two painkillers, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)
FILE - This Feb. 19, 2013, file photo shows pills of the painkiller hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. Drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on these two painkillers, according to an investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

By Associated Press 2 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – Fred’s, a small regional drugstore chain from Memphis, Tennessee, has had a very good week.

It all started Tuesday, when Fred’s said it would pay $950 million to buy 865 stores that Rite Aid needed to sell in order to appease anti-trust regulators and close its $9.4 billion buyout deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

The deal will more than double Fred’s current store count of 650. CEO Michael Bloom called it a “transformative event” for the company.

Fred’s stock has soared since, rising about 75 percent this week, its biggest one-week gain since its shares began trading nearly 25 years ago.

The company, founded in 1947, sells cosmetics, food and runs about 370 pharmacy departments within its stores. Fred’s lost money in the past two fiscal years, and had been in the process of closing stores that weren’t performing well. Its revenue last year was $2.2 billion, compared to Walgreens’ $117.4 billion and Rite Aid’s $30.7 billion.