Struggling pharmacy chain Ceremony Assist is as soon as once more dealing with cash woes, forcing the corporate to file for chapter once more.
In accordance to a court docket submitting, the corporate filed for chapter safety for the second time in simply two years. The corporate “was unable to safe further capital from lenders that was wanted to proceed working the enterprise,” Bloomberg reported, citing a letter from CEO Matthew Schroeder.
Ceremony Assist used its 2023 chapter to chop $2 billion in debt, shut a whole bunch of shops, promote its pharmacy profit firm Elixir, and negotiate settlements with collectors, together with McKesson. That course of additionally resolved lawsuits “alleging that Ceremony Assist ignored purple flags when filling suspicious prescriptions for addictive opioid ache medicine.”
However when it emerged from chapter in 2024 as a personal firm owned by lenders, it nonetheless had $2.5 billion in debt. Now, it estimates its belongings and liabilities fall within the vary of $1 billion to $10 billion.
The letter from Schroeder additionally famous that Ceremony Assist intends “to cut back its workforce at its company places of work in Pennsylvania.” As soon as working round 2,000 pharmacies in 2023, the chain is now down to only 1,250 areas, with main cuts in states like Ohio and Michigan.
Pharmacy chains together with Ceremony Assist, Walgreens, and CVS have struggled as “falling drug margins and competitors from Walmart and Amazon” set off retailer closures. Walgreens, additionally reeling, just lately agreed to a $10 billion buyout by Sycamore Companions, a steep fall from its $100 billion valuation simply ten years in the past.
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