there to CVS. Sale of stores to Walgreens On October 27, 2015, Walgreens announced that it would acquire Rite Aid for $9.4 billion, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. The deal would have resulted in a merger of two of the United States' three largest pharmacy chains. Walgreens planned to keep the Rite Aid name on existing stores when the deal went through, though the long-term plans for the Rite Aid name were unknown. On December 21, 2016, it was announced that Fred's would acquire 865 Rite Aid stores as a result of the merger for $950 million, for antitrust reasons. In January 2017, Rite Aid and Walgreens cut the price of the merger to approximately $6.8 billion and delayed the merger by six months. On January 31, 2017, it was reported that the workers' union 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, representing 6,000 Rite Aid Corp workers, was opposed to the sale of the Rite Aid stores to Fred's Inc. On June 29, 2017, Walgreens announced the merger was canceled, adding that it would be purchasing 2,186 stores from Rite Aid for $5.2 billion plus a $325 million penalty for canceling. Most experts had thought that the merger would be completed within a few weeks. The merger would have had about 46% of the market share. The revised deal—now not including Fred's at all—effectively would have seen Rite Aid exit the southeastern United States. On September 19, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a fourth deal agreement, this time allowing Walgreens to purchase only 1,932 Rite-Aid stores for $4.38 billion. The sale was completed on March 27, 2018. Three distribution centers and related inventory were transferred after September 1, 2018, when the stores were rebranded to Walgreens. The 1,932 stores showed banners saying "Pharmacy now operated by Walgreens" or "We now have a Walgreens pharmacy" in the meantime. After the acquisition, Walgreens closed about 600 stores over 18 months starting in spring 2018, mostly Rite Aid stores within a mile of an existing Walgreens. As of fiscal year 2022, Pennsylvania with 494 stores is home to the largest number of Rite Aids, followed by California and New York with 487 and 281 respectively. Attempted acquisition by Albertsons On February 20, 2018, Albertsons announced plans to acquire the remainder of Rite Aid, including the 2,600 stores not acquired by Walgreens, in a merger of equals, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.