Eckerd
From Free net encyclopedia
Template:Infobox Company Eckerd is a drug store chain with more than 1,549 stores in more than 13 states across the Mid-Atlantic and New England portions of the United States. The store base stretches from Georgia to New York.
Eckerd is currently a unit of the Quebec-based Jean Coutu Group. The corporate headquarters was recently transferred from Florida to Rhode Island, the base of Jean Coutu's other U.S. chain, Brooks Pharmacy. The Eckerd and Brooks chains now share many of the same corporate functions.
Prior to July 2004, Eckerd was owned by JC Penney, and was one of the largest drug store chains in the U.S., with over 2,800 stores stretching from New York to Florida and west to Arizona. In July 2004, JC Penney sold all of the Eckerd stores to Brooks Pharmacy. In a deal at closing, 1,400 stores in the Southeastern and Southwestern United States, were sold to CVS:
Over 1,000 of the stores that CVS purchased are located in Florida and Texas. CVS converted the Eckerd stores it purchased to the CVS name throughout late 2004 and 2005, eliminating the Eckerd name from those markets, which had once been amongst the chain's strongholds. Jean Coutu kept the remainder of the stores, mostly in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic U.S. states. Jean Coutu is operating the stores it purchased under the slightly modified "Eckerd Pharmacy" name. (The word "pharmacy" was recently added to the logo)
The founder of the drug store chain, Jack Eckerd, made a large donation to Florida Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1971, after which the College was renamed Eckerd College.Template:Retail-stub