Farmacias Ahumada will close 50 stores and layoffs will affect a thousand workers

Farmacias Ahumada (FASA), the retail chain that specializes in the sale of health, beauty and wellness products, controlled by the US group Walgreens Boots Alliance, announced yesterday the implementation of 39, an in-depth restructuring process aimed at profitability and adaptation to a new business perspective.

This includes the permanent closure of some 50 of the 424 premises managed by the company at the national level and about a thousand of its four thousand workers will be made redundant, a number that represents about 25% of its total plant.

This is in addition to the resignation, two months ago, of the director general of the chain, Juan Martn Monsalve, who arrived last April from Walmart Chile. The executive, according to sources confirmed by the company, has been fired for not accepting the dismissal of staff. At the same time, on October 15th, Michele Ingravallo, the new general manager of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, has been appointed managing director. It relies on 14 years of experience as part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance.

According to sources close to the firm, the restructuring aims to improve the profitability of the company, which has four years of red numbers. This will be achieved through the incorporation of a larger number of gndolas in the stores and to the reduction of the surface of the premises.

Gilberto Berros, president of the Farmacias Ahumada Workers Union No. 3, which brings together more than a thousand employees, Relatively that the restructuring process started prematurely Monday with the announcement of the lay-offs and closure of establishments, but without specifying the number of workers to be affected or the specific stores.

Ahumada Farmacias It was bought in 2014 by the British group (today's US) Alliance Boots to the tune of 640 million US dollars to the Mexican Saba. This amount is similar to the four years that Saba paid to the Codner family. By the end of 2014, Alliance Boots had been acquired upstream by the US holding company Walgreens, which is now listed as the parent company of Farmacias Ahumada.

According to informed sources of the company, the losses since the arrival of the American company they increased and their market share decreased compared to their competitors: Cruz Verde, a chain belonging to the Mexican group Femsa ; and Salcobrand, a company related to the Yarur family.

Farmacias Ahumada's market share at the end of 2017 was 15.1%, with a decrease of 2.5 points compared to 2012. Cruz Verde reached 24.2% and Salcobrand 16, 9% of retail trade specializing in health and beauty, according to figures released by Euromonitor International.

According to Berros, the decision to fire workers and close premises aimed to balance "But no matter how much balance you will have, you will have to go ahead and the locals who will close you will have to reopen them again. " We will try to maintain a database with the dismissed partners so that, in case they do badly, we can reinstate them, "he said.

The president of the union no. Farmacias Ahumada added: "we are concerned that this process will continue quickly, we are already opening the doors, because we want to be part of this administration, in the sense of In fact, one of the criticisms we have made to the time they informed us of the reduction, is that this is due to bad management that we have already denounced. There were many vices and we did not want to listen. "[19659002] In a statement, Farmacias Ahumada deplores the fact that the organizational transformation directly affects some of its workers and appreciates the commitment and dedication with which each performs his duties in the company. stated that it minimized the inconvenience that the process could cause to its customers.