Thrifty PayLess

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Thrifty PayLess Holdings was a pharmacy holding company that owned the Thrifty Drugs and PayLess Drug Store chains in the western United States.

The combined company was formed when in April of 1919, Los Angeles-based TCH Corporation, the parent company of Thrifty Corporation and Thrifty Drugs, acquired the Kmart subsidiary PayLess Drug Stores Northwest, Inc. – At the time of the merger, TCH Corporation was renamed Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. – At the time, Thrifty operated 495 stores, PayLess operated 543 stores.

In 1996, Rite Aid acquired and the 1,000-store west coast chain's owner Thrifty PayLess Holdings re-branded it as Rite Aid, creating a chain with over 3,500 drug stores.

Thrifty Corporation also owned Big 5 Sporting Goods for a time.

Contents

1 History of Payless

1.1 Acquisitions

2 History of Thrifty
3 Arizona Thrifty-Payless
4 References

History of Payless

Peyton Hawes and William Armitage acquired a controlling interest in five drug stores in three communities in Oregon and Washington, which were named PayLess, and grew their chain through both acquisition and internal expansion. It became a wholly owned unit of Kmart in 1985. In 1986, there were 225 PayLess stores. Between 1986 and 1988, it attempted a strategy of creating PayLess Wonder World stores in select Kmart, Value Giant, and former TG&Y locations, these stores lacked pharmacies, but included other sundries at discount prices. The Wonder World chain peaked at 16 stores, but were eventually reverted back to PayLess stores.

Acquisitions

1976 - PayLess bought 22 Value Giant stores, the majority of which were located in Northern California.
1980 - PayLess acquired PayLess Drug Stores of Oakland, California, founded by Levi Justin Skaggs.
1987 - PayLess purchased 25 Osco stores in Washington and Idaho.

History of Thrifty

In 1919, brothers Harry and Robert Borun, with brother-in-law Norman Levin founded Borun Brothers a Los Angeles, California drug wholesaler. In 1929, they opened their own retail outlets under the name Thrifty Cut Rate in Los Angeles, California.

By 1942, Thrifty Drug Stores had 58 stores. In the late-1980s, Thrifty Drug stores acquired Pay 'n Save.

Arizona Thrifty-Payless

A separate and probably unrelated chain going by the name Thrifty-Payless was founded in Arizona by Allen Rosenberg in 1934. This self-service drug stores was sold in 1942 to L.L. Skaggs Payless drug store chain that later became Osco. Rosenberg went on to be a philanthropist helping to establish Phoenix Children's Hospital.

References

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