“They selectively shut down stores after acquiring the chain in a bankruptcy fire sale:”
The only way Walgreens could gain from the purchase and shortly thereafter closure of those stores is that the things they received from the purchase were worth more than the price they paid for the acquisition.
Do you think this was Walgreen’s plan, as opposed to them hoping to turn those stores into profitable pharmacies?
It was a nationwide chain. Just because the Bay Area stores weren’t performing doesn’t mean the rest of the stores nationwide weren’t.