NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Sept. 15, 2008—Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that Walgreen Co.'s (A+/Watch Neg/--) competing higher offer to purchase Longs Drug Stores Corp. (not rated) in a transaction valued at about $3.0 billion has no effect on our ratings on CVS/Caremark Corp. (BBB+/Stable/A-2). Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS has extended the expiration for its tender offer to purchase Longs to Oct. 15, 2008, and the purchase price remains at $2.9 billion, including the assumption of net debt. Although it is uncertain whether CVS will make a revised offer for Longs, an upsized offer funded with incremental debt that results in total debt to EBITDA increasing to pro forma debt leverage of over 3.4x from 3.2x currently could
