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Innisfail Shoppers Drug Mart to be sold

The giant white letters on the red facade above the entrance to the Shoppers Drug Mart store in Innisfail are coming down.But when this will happen, and what those letters will be replaced with, is unknown.

The giant white letters on the red facade above the entrance to the Shoppers Drug Mart store in Innisfail are coming down.

But when this will happen, and what those letters will be replaced with, is unknown.

The store is among the 27 Shoppers outlets that Canada’s Competition Bureau has directed Loblaw Companies Ltd. to sell as a condition of the bureau’s approval of Loblaw’s purchase of Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. That deal, which closed March 28, involved approximately 1,240 Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix stores across Canada, as well as medical clinic pharmacies, Shoppers Home Health Care stores, luxury beauty destinations and other assets.

The 27 properties that Loblaw must divest itself of include 18 stores and nine pharmacy operations. Sixteen are in Ontario, with seven in the Atlantic provinces, three in Alberta and one in British Columbia.

Devon and Westlock are the other Alberta communities affected by the Competition Bureau’s decision.

Loblaw said in a release that it doesn’t expect the divestitures to result in any store closures. It will be business as usual at each of the properties during the sale process, it added.

Loblaw and Shoppers announced the $12.4 billion sale last July.

Shoppers is now a separate operating division of Loblaw.