Walgreens, the store with the red squiggly W has been an American institution for more than a century.

It's a place where you can fill your prescriptions, buy deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, or pick up a pint of ice cream late at night.

And it's everywhere.

70% of Americans live within five miles of a Walgreens-owned pharmacy.

But this American institution is now at risk of falling apart.

Walgreens, which has been a publicly traded company for close to 100 years, agreed to sell itself to a private equity forum called Sycamore Partners for about $10 billion, or something like $90 billion less than it was worth about 10 years ago.

That's our colleague Joseph Walker.

He's watched Walgreens go from a company worth more than $100 billion down to worth $10 billion today.

You know, a great American brand over 100 years old, you don't really have this sort of

ignominious demise or decline over the past, you know, five, ten years.

In the way that it struggled to adapt to the market forces that were affecting its competitors,

but didn't quite end up moving in the right direction. And you can add into it, you know,

the Italian billionaire who stepped in and tried to help with that turnaround and, you know,

so far has also failed to make it happen.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Monday, March 10th.

Coming up on the show, the collapse of Walgreens.

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