You can't be too cynical about management, but the investors are overwhelmingly institutions such as the largest index funds in the world. Walgreen's is somethi

You can't be too cynical about management, but the investors are overwhelmingly institutions such as the largest index funds in the world. Walgreen's is something like 0.1% of the stock market. If they vaporized tomorrow, so much the better for their competitors which the same entities own. I guess management might be playing to the few people that bet the farm on Walgreens, but I can't imagine what they are like or what the execs think they want. You suggest that management doesn't want to admit they're closing stores for other reasons, but they do admit they're closing some stores for other reasons, right? That was cited in the article, which linked to an SEC filing saying they're spending over $2 billion to close stores. Is it plausible individual investors and/or bonus agreements are critically affected by the reasoning provided for a handful of store closings out of hundreds? Is it plausible even someone who invested every dollar they own in Walgreens cares about SF specifically, when they have 10,000 locations? I don't think there's a way to recover a self-consistent narrative from the article. Of course, that in no way proves that corporate mouthpieces are truthful or that they're not up to something.