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NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal has reported Friday that Rite Aid is undergoing plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks as a way to handle its more than $3B in debt and its potential exposure to opioid-related lawsuits.
Shares are down ~37% early Friday afternoon. Trading in the stock was briefly halted at noon.
The journal said that the drug store chain still hasn’t worked out with federal and state governments, or individual plaintiffs to resolve the opioid liabilities in a bankruptcy, choosing to handle them as general unsecured claims, people familiar with the matter said.
Rite Aid already faces over 1K federal lawsuits that have consolidated into a multi-district litigation in Ohio.
The potential filing is not a total shock as in July, Reorg reported Rite Aid was considering Chapter 11.
