Wall Street Journal
TORONTO—Canadian grocer Loblaw Cos. agreed to buy Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. for 12.4 billion Canadian dollars ($11.93 billion) in a cash-and-stock deal that marries two of Canada’s biggest and best-known retail brands.
The move gives Loblaw—a 95-year-old grocery giant controlled by one of Canada’s wealthiest families—a foothold in smaller, urban markets across Canada. That may help it lure city dwellers in for more frequent, if smaller, grocery runs as it fends off competition from big discounters and new niche players.
The deal is the biggest and latest in a series of large consolidations in the grocery business in both the U.S. and Canada. Earlier this month, Kroger Co. KR +0.35% said it would buy Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc. HTSI -0.02% for $2.44 billion. Canadian giant Empire Co. last month agreed to buy Safeway Inc.’s SWY +1.63% Canadian operations for about $5.68 billion.