Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) announced that it is acquiring Rite Aid Corp. in a transaction it will fund largely with debt and existing cash. The transaction is valued at $17.2 billion, including the assumption of about $7.5 billion of Rite Aid?s debt. Although we expect WBA?s credit metrics to weaken moderately, we believe the company will dedicate its excess cash flows toward debt reduction in the next two years. We are affirming all our ratings on the company, including the ?BBB? corporate credit rating. We revised the outlook to negative, underpinned by our view that we could lower the ratings if WBA encounters integration difficulties that hinders its debt reduction initiatives. On Oct. 27, 2015, Standard&Poor?s Ratings
