Posted on March - 29 - 2010
Hard corners: Ike’s, Super D’s owner couldn’t get best sites, chose to leave
Photo by Mike Maple // Buy this photo
This Ike’s store at 2145 Union, and another at 5040 Park, may be bought by Walgreens as USA Drug, the parent company of Ike’s and Super D, closes all of its 17 stores in the Memphis market.
Joe Courtright, USA Drug’s president and CEO, admitted that although the timing was right, leaving Memphis after 44 years was a tough decision.
He said the reason his company decided to close or sell 17 Super D and Ike’s Discount stores in the Memphis market was simple: real estate.
“We’ve been in a situation where we’ve been outpositioned on facilities and real estate,” Courtright said from USA Drug offices in Little Rock Thursday. “We just weren’t able to obtain the properties we needed to as far having freestanding buildings on a hard corner with a drive-through.”
Courtright’s description is one familiar to anyone who has visited a Walgreens, Rite-Aid or CVS. Those stores, Courtright said, became so pervasive in the market that it became hard to make a move.
“We just weren’t getting the growth that we needed,” he said. “We either had to lower our standards on service or leave the market, and we just chose to leave the market.”
USA Drug sold its prescription files for all 17 Memphis stores to Walgreen Co. in a deal that will be completed Tuesday. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Once the deal is finalized, patients who had their prescriptions at Ike’s or Super D stores will be able to pick them up at local Walgreens locations.
The two companies are also negotiating the purchase of two Ike’s stores, at 2145 Union and 5040 Park. Courtright said those two stores will not close immediately and will remain, at least temporarily, Ike’s stores. However, a Walgreens spokeswoman said Wednesday that the stores will quickly become Walgreens stores, should they be purchased.
When that transformation takes place, there will not be another Ike’s Discount store anywhere on the planet.
Courtright said Super D and Ike’s employ about 300 full-time and part-time workers. Walgreens expects to retain most of the existing employees at the Ike’s stores expected to remain open.
“We’ve been so entrenched in Memphis, and that allowed us to get the best employees out there,” Courtright said.
He also noted that Super D stores in counties surrounding Memphis will remain open. He said he expects to open new stores in areas close to Shelby County within the next six months.
“We fully expect to reinvest the proceeds from the sale toward more acquisitions and, as a result, forecast even greater earnings,” Courtright said in a statement issued Thursday morning. “We have several additional store projects planned for the current fiscal year.”
— Toby Sells: 529-2742
Similar Posts:
- USA Drug, owner of Ike’s and Super D, will be out of Memphis by March 23
- All Ike’s Discount and Super D stores in Memphis to close
- The show is over for Memphis-born discount retailer Ike’s
- Bluesman’s love of Fred’s has the Memphis chain playing the blues
- Half Price Harry’s solution to long-empty Kwik Save
